


A Journey Through Time and Space

by tartpants



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV), The Mighty Boosh RPF
Genre: Drama, Humor, M/M, Romance, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 15:46:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 84,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5933878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tartpants/pseuds/tartpants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Boosh is on the verge of breaking up for good, but an unexpected and impossible journey to the Zooniverse may teach Julian and Noel how to better appreciate their creations, and each other. Originally posted to Boosh Slash Haven on LJ in 2006-2008.</p><p>ETA: I recently realized that large chunks of this fic were missing due to my own carelessness, specifically at the ends of parts 3, 4, and 5. This has since been fixed, so if you've read this fic once and were confused, please re-read! thx.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing and am making no money. This is merely for my own amusement, and hopefully the amusement of others. The characterizations of Noel and Julian are completely fictional and entirely rooted in my own imagination.

  
**A Journey Through Time and Space**

***

part one  


The deejay was spinning Chicks on Speed, and Noel was just fine with that. The club was impossibly warm: a mess of smiling, drunken faces -- some familiar and others not, but all of them seemed like friends tonight. A girl with purple fringe tried to pull him onto the dance floor, but he waved her away with an apologetic grin, miming a tossed back drink to indicate he was thirsty. He had to worm his way through a crush of moist bodies before he reached the bar, but once there he found a sweating glass of gin and tonic waiting for him. The barman knew this was their end-of-tour afterparty, and he'd kept the liquor flowing for them all night long. Noel briefly pressed the icy glass to his forehead, then took a long, slow drink that set his back teeth aching. He let out a shallow gasp, wiped his mouth, and squinted down at the end of the bar, where Julian was sitting.

Where Julian should have been sitting. Instead, there was a kid dressed as Electro Boy/Girl in his place, his half-mustache dotted with lager foam. 

Noel frowned to himself, but only slightly. It wasn't unusual for Julian to skip out on parties, especially when the music playing was of the variety that he loathed. It had nothing to do with the social disaster that was Howard T.J. Moon, Julian's alter-ego. Julian was far from a social disaster; he was confident and at ease in a crowd, and he could even carry on genuine conversations with perfect strangers in a way that Noel himself couldn't, preferring instead to give them hugs and make cheeky jokes. Julian just knew himself, through and through, and even though he enjoyed going on the razz as much as anyone else, he knew when he was finished with a party -- unlike Noel, who stayed until he was too drunk to walk or verbally function. But still, this was the end of their tour. The cast and crew had been in high spirits when the final curtain fell, and Julian had cracked open a bottle of champers backstage while clad in nothing but the now-infamous pink pants, a sure sign that he was up for a night of celebratory antics. 

Noel swirled the ice in his glass. The hotel was just across the way -- couldn't hurt to see what Ju was up to. 

Getting out of the club was easier said than done, and Noel ended up sneaking out the back door, mouthing "be right back" to Dave as he did so. He slipped through the alley, deserted but for a couple who were snogging up against a rubbish bin, and walked briskly to the hotel. He passed a kebab vendor on the corner, whose radio was sputtering on about solar flares in a poncy newsman's voice. Noel barely listened; he didn't go out in the sun if he could help it. 

The hotel was a posh one, and the lift paneled with gilt-edged mirrors. Noel ran a hand through his limp and sweaty locks, wincing. On tour, they had kept a mirror situated just off stage and Noel had fallen into the habit of checking over his hair and makeup before making his entrance. Rich had taken the mickey over it, making the expected budgie jokes and declaring that the line between Vince Noir and Noel Fielding grew thinner as the years went on. To this Noel had only nodded and grinned in vague agreement. Privately, he'd been a bit hacked. He and Vince might share the same hair, wardrobe, and taste in music, but as far as Noel was concerned, that's where the similarity ended. Noel had days where he didn't feel like telling fucking jokes. He had days when the thought of putting on that mirrorball suit, yet _again_ , made him a bit sick. He could even remember, quite fondly, a time when people didn't routinely approach him on the street by the name of Vince, but that time seemed far back. 

The lift dinged and the mirrored doors parted, his reflection suddenly and starkly divided, and Noel padded his way across the thick hallway carpet. He paused in front of Julian's door and listened for the sounds of telly or jazz, but there was nothing. He knocked twice. No answer. He fumbled out the keys to his own room, clearing his throat and thinking that he might like a drink of water before he returned to the club. 

When he entered, he found that all the lights in his room were blazing, and that Julian was sat on the bed, thumbing through a thick sheaf of papers. 

Noel froze to the spot, keys still a jumble in his hand. 

"What are you doing?" 

Julian didn't look up, but continued to read in a way that seemed to suggest powerful concentration.

"How'd you get in here?" Noel asked, his tone much more defensive than he intended. He eyed the script in Julian's hand, knowing full well what it was. 

"Our rooms are ajoining." Julian lifted a tumbler of scotch and took a long drink. Then he finally lifted his eyes to Noel's, confirming that he wasn't reading the script with powerful concentration, but with powerful anger. 

"Look, you have no right. . ." Noel raised his hands. "Those are my private things!" 

Julian stood up and slammed his glass down hard on top of the television set. "I came in here to fetch the notes we'd sketched out for series three. Come to discover you've got yourself a little side-project rat-holed away." 

"It's just an idea." Noel rushed to Julian's side and reached out, not quite brave enough to snatch the script from Julian's hand. "It's not been approved yet."

"Yet?" 

Noel flinched at Julian's cold tone. He was known to have a strop or two himself, in his day, but they were always the type of temper tantrum that made others -- especially Julian -- roll their eyes and click their tongues. But when Julian was angry, it wasn't cute. And when he was drunk it was even worse. Most rational people backed away at once, but Noel wasn't rational. His initial radar told him to take cover, but his profound irritation at being found out was threatening to over-ride that radar. 

"Oh, don't you fucking start," he said. "All our plans for the next series are rubbish and you know it. You're the one who hates them!" 

"I don't hate them." Julian squeezed the script between his hands, inadvertently crumpling the pages. "I just know we can do better than plopping Vince and Howard back at the zoo, or in that stupid Shaman's shop." 

Noel pointed an accusing finger. "You always say we can do better, but where's the goods?"

"Where's _your_ goods? Wrapped up in a charming little spin-off about Vince Noir, the revolutionary rock n' roll star." 

"Just because I wrote a spin-off doesn't mean I don't want to continue on writing with you!" 

Julian snorted. "Don't do me any favours." 

Noel reached out and touched Julian's shoulder, tripped up in momentary surprise. "I'm not doing you a favour, we're a double-act. Like always." 

Julian's hand shook as he held the battered script up before Noel's face. "This is not a double-act. This is _Vince Noir's Electro Experience_."

Feeling the beginnings of a headache, Noel sat down on the edge of the bed and massaged his temples. "Oh, come off it. You were lead in _Nathan Barley_. You've branched out from the double-act before. Why can't I?" 

"Because this is _Vince_ , and Vince is one-half of what _we_ created."

"But he's my half!" 

"Yeah, really?" In a flurry of paper, Julian threw the script at Noel. It hit him hard on the side of the face, then fell to the ground with a rustle that seemed obscenely loud. "Vince Noir wouldn't even exist if you hadn't followed me about all those years back, desperate to attach your name to mine."

Noel popped to his feet at once. "Howard Moon wouldn't exist if he didn't have Vince as his highlight. His... contrast. _Whatever_." 

Julian gave Noel a rough push, born more from instinct than intent, and Noel went bouncing back to the mattress. "Don't argue with me. I know when I'm right." 

Noel scooted backwards on the bed, cautioning himself to stay down. They'd come to blows in the past, usually when he wouldn't sit still and let Julian have his say. Staying down wasn't easy right now, though; he sort of wanted to hit Julian -- mostly because he knew Julian was right. Going behind his mate's back on a new script was sneaky and low. "All right, all right," he finally said, almost chanting. "I should have told you, but I knew you'd hate the idea. But look -- all our attempts at series three aren't workin' out. The formula's got too tight a grip on us. But if Vince sets out on his own --"

" _What_?" Julian took a step back, looking as if Noel _had_ just hit him. Suckered him in the gut, maybe. "You actually want to do this."

Noel swallowed, unsure of what to say. Maybe he could point out how they'd kept adding dates to the tour, as if fearing what would come when it finally ended. Maybe he could just rip the script to pieces, see if that'd settle things. Maybe he could just tell the truth. 

But what that truth was, Noel wasn't sure. It had to do with a fear that he hadn't yet acknowledged, and even now was only dimly aware of as it gnawed away at his insides, burrowing itself a home. It was this same fear that kept him from looking Julian in the eyes these days. They had communicated to each other through glances, glimpses, and side-long looks for so long that Noel feared his eyes would say something that his mouth couldn't yet pronounce..

And absurdly, the only thing that he could think to say with his mouth, at this moment, was _maybe I just want to leave the party before I'm too drunk to walk._

"Yeah," he said, instead. "I do want to do this." The words fell like blunt stones from his lips, and Julian reeled back slightly. 

"You fucking little cunt. _Why_?" 

Noel didn't answer, and instead glared at Julian through his fringe. 

They both lunged at each other at the same time -- in sync, despite everything -- their hands balled into fists, incomprehensible swear words tumbling from their mouths. 

Outside, the sun flared despite the fact the earth had turned its back.

***

Julian groaned. Why the fuck were hotel beds so much more uncomfortable than his own? Was it an unwritten rule somewhere? The mattress beneath him had about as much give as a plank of wood. He shifted onto his side, his eyes squeezed tight, and windmilled his legs around, trying to find a comfortable position. His feet collided with something soft, and he groaned again.

No... that wasn't him that had groaned. It was someone else, lying next to him. 

Julian sat upright at once, yanking blankets away from his face, slightly dizzy from the sudden movement. He glanced down at the person lying next to him -- not on a bed, but flat on the ground. 

_What the fuck?_

It was Noel. It... was Noel, wasn't it? The hair was different. Blond bits peaking out through the brown and black -- similar, but not exactly the same as what it had been a few years back. 

Julian furrowed his brow. Hadn't they just been fighting? He could vaguely remember grabbing a fistful of Noel's hair (black only) and cocking his fist back to deliver him one hell of a punch. Just as he could vaguely remember Noel doing the exact same thing, his hand groping for purchase on Julian's shoulder, his lip unattractively curled beneath his top teeth in an animal-like grimace. And then... then what? Things had gone sort of dark. And now he was awake. With Noel next to him.

Unable to fully face the line of logic that would lead to Noel sleeping next to him, Julian averted his eyes and used them to search out the rest of the room, which was all at once both completely familiar and entirely alien to him. Here were the sleeping bags, spread out on the floor in front of the small, beaten leather sofa. There was the typewriter, looking smug on the scrubbed oak table, and the little kitchenette over in the corner. A blender was sat out on the counter, streaked with the remains of some pink, cloying drink. 

It was the series one set, and Julian had no fucking clue how he'd gotten here. To his knowledge, the set had been torn down long ago.

Coming to his feet, he walked slowly around the small space, his hands running over the knobby surface of the table and testing out the plush of the sofa. It was definitely the old set, but something was strange about it. Off. He heard a faint pattering sound overhead and looked up.

The skylight window overhead was streaked with rain, and through the glass he could make out a roil of dark clouds. 

He sat down hard on the sofa, his foot coming down on the ends of Noel's hair. Directly across from him was a wall that he'd never seen before. It was the spot where the set usually cut away, allowing ample room for cameras and lights to be moved in and out, but now it was just a wall with a tiny woodstove and a rickety book shelf. He stared at that spot hard, as if it were an optical illusion that would disappear, should he just concentrate. 

"Ow, geroff," Noel complained, using his balled fists to rub at his eyes and then swat at Julian's foot. Then he yawned with his whole body, shuddering, and opened one eye, tilting his head back to look at Julian. 

"Why are you dressed like that?" 

The sound of the rain grew louder against the tin roof and Julian felt his eyelid twitch. Slowly, he dropped his head and stared down into his lap. Green polyester jacket, brown trousers, striped socks on his feet. Well, wasn't that peculiar? 

"Noel," he said, then paused, fearing that the person lying on the floor would correct him. Say something like _Hey, I'm Vince_. Thankfully, no such correction came. "I think you should have a look around." 

Blankets and sleeping bag rustled as Noel twisted about, taking in the scene, but Julian continued to stare at the safe, everyday normalcy of his knees.

"Wot?" The word came from under Noel's breath, like a soft squeak. 

"You see it too, then." 

"How'd we get here?" 

Julian finally met Noel's eyes, which were wide below his sleep-tousled hair. He'd dragged the blankets up to his chin and looked quite as if he wanted to duck under them and hide away. 

"I thought the set was gone," Noel said, his fingers nervously plucking at the blanket.

"It is."

"Then why are we here?" 

A enormous thunderclap suddenly sounded, shaking the little hut down to its timbers, and they both jumped. 

"Why is it thundering on set, Howard?" Noel asked, his voice high and plaintive, like a child's. 

"Howard? I'm not Howard, I'm Julian." He watched Noel carefully, noting the expression of deep surprise and muted distress on his mate's face. Calling him Howard had been nothing but an accident, an accident of the sort that Julian could understand. Here, in this place, he even felt a bit like Howard. His zooniform fit him as if it had been made for him, whereas the original costume had been a bit tight around the middle for his liking. Hell, it even smelled like him. Him being Howard, who Julian always imagined as smelling of ink and paper and something a little bit yeasty, like good bread or beer. 

"I know that," Noel said quickly. "It was a slip."

Julian nodded. He really wanted to do nothing but sit there in silence, until perhaps some sensible answer presented itself like a neatly gift-wrapped package, but an odd feeling kept bubbling up inside his chest, prompting him to speak. "Think we're having some kind of bad dream?" he finally asked. "Like, one of us is having a dream so bad that it's grown to monstrous proportions and taken over the other's dream, like a plague of locusts?" 

"If anyone's having that dream, it's you. I only dream subservient, non-plagueish dreams." 

"What, are you saying my dreams are domineering? That, in the world of S&M, my dream would be the one with a whip in its hand, and yours would be the one with the safe word?" 

"Leave your kinky fantasies out of it. I just think your dreams have a inferiority complex if they've got to go around bullying other peoples dreams into dreaming the same thing as you." 

"Bullying! You can --" Abruptly, Julian shut his mouth. He and Noel stared at each other, their eyes communicating wordless horror. This sort of banter... it wasn't natural. It was part of the act. An act they sometimes practiced in real life, true enough, slipping into improvisational versions of Moon and Noir while having a leisurely pint somewhere. Julian would say something in the voice of Howard, the know-it-all who knew nothing, and Noel would fade into the arrogant ponce counterpart of Vince, easy as snapping his fingers. 

It was easy here, too, was the problem. Too easy -- it fit as well as Julian's green jacket, and made the difference between him and Howard Moon seem so slight that it drove him a bit mental. Where _was_ Julian? 

"Ju..." Noel said, and he felt himself click back into place, back into the puzzle of himself and of the moment. 

Julian opened his mouth to say something -- he didn't know what -- but was abruptly drowned out by the crackle of an intercom.

_"MOON! I WANT TO SEE YOUR PEDANTIC PUSS IN MY OFFICE, PRONTO!"_

Julian scrambled to his feet, straightening out his jacket and looking wildly around the hut. No, _the set_. God... where was he? "Coming," he mumbled.

A hand darted out and gripped him by the ankle. Noel's hand. "Where are you going?"

"Fossil... he said to go to his office." 

Noel pursed his lips together in concern. "That's not Fossil. That's just Rich, having a lark." He laughed nervously, ruining the illusion of certainty. 

The sofa creaked as Julian slowly lowered himself down into it, and Noel loosened his grip on his ankle. "Good christ. What's going on?" 

"It's just a joke." 

Julian shook his head, a numb sensation filling his chest. "Who would go to all this effort for a joke?"

Noel was quiet for several long minutes, then finally took a deep breath. "I think we're trapped in the Zooniverse," he said, so quickly that the ridiculous words ran together as a single utterance, but even as they came out of his mouth, they sounded instantly _right_. 

Julian felt it, too. Everything was real: the rain overhead, the faint smell of wild animal shit in the air, the sound of the ocelots feeding, somewhere nearby. And while a deep, internal part of him was screaming _this isn't right! This isn't happening!_ , for the moment it just seemed much easier to accept things at face value.

They had entered the Zooniverse. 

"Did we take drugs last night, Ju?" 

"No," Julian said. "We had a fight." 

"A fight while on drugs?" 

"No!" Julian felt the memory of his anger returning -- fast, like a steaming bowl of hot bark.

_No. No! Not like hot bark. God._

"You wrote yourself a spinoff, remember?" Julian said, unable to keep animosity from creeping into his tone. "Decided it was time the Boosh boys go their separate ways." 

Noel, to his credit, looked flabbergasted, as if he couldn't have possibly done such a thing. But then realisation passed over his face, lifting the cluelessness away like a filmy veil, and he shrunk a little deeper into his blankets. "Oh, right," he muttered. 

Julian grimaced. "You know, just for once I'd like --"

_"MOON! I SAID PRONTO! SURELY ONE AS WELL-READ AS YOURSELF KNOWS THE FREAKIN' MEANING!"_

They both covered their ears at the staticky squeal of the intercom, which was much more intrusive then either of them recalled. 

"God, maybe you'd better go. He sounds like he's about to have a stroke." 

:"What? No! Who knows what's" -- Julian made wild gestures at the door -- "out there."

"Yeah, but we have to find out some time, don't we?" 

"Why don't _you_ go have a look then, eh?" 

"I can't!" 

Julian hissed through his teeth in exasperation. "And why not? You've got two functioning legs. They can even function in platforms. Use them!"

"But he asked for you," Noel said simply, drawing himself even further under the blankets.

"Noel, for god's sake..." 

"Look, I'm naked under here," Noel said abruptly, sounding oddly like he might be on the verge of either crying or laughing. Maybe both. 

"You're...you..." Julian stammered. "Why?" 

"I don't know! I just woke up that way." By now, only Noel's eyes were peeping out from above the blankets. 

"Well, so what? I've seen you naked before. The whole cast and crew has, practically." 

"It feels funky, I don't like it." 

Julian ran his fingers through his wayward hair. "You know... what's funky is _why_ Vince Noir would sleep naked while Howard Moon sleeps next to him, fully clothed." 

"Killeroo," Noel said, in a tiny voice.

"Huh?" 

"Killeroo. The scene where Vince and Howard sack out in the sleeping bags... you asked me what sort of pyjamas Vince would have and I joked that he probably slept naked. And then you joked that Howard probably slept in full zooniform." 

It was nothing more than a dim clatter in the back of Julian's memory, but what Noel said seemed right. "Yeah, but we didn't end up filming it that way." 

"But that's how it was written." 

Julian stood up, his knees popping in protest. "This all feels very weird." 

"Don't tell me. I'm the one who's naked." 

Julian nodded vaguely, then jerked decisively towards the door. Thunder rumbled once more, nearly stopping him in his tracks, but he forced himself forward, moving as if through wet sand, until -- finally -- the doorknob was in his hand. "Anything could be out there, you know," he said, his voice harsh. 

"Yeah," Noel said, muffled by blanket.

Julian turned the doorknob.

***

Vince Noir was having one far-out dream. In it, he was splashed out to the nines in sequins and feathers, positively dazzling in the spotlight of a large, expansive stage. He was pulling shapes left and right: bottle of champagne... wheelbarrow... flying carpet. It was genius layered in a genius cake, and only when he felt a slight pain in his shoulder did he glance up and see the strings overhead. Strings thick as cables that were attached to _his_ back, he realised, feeling them twist about and shape him into a slender coat rack. He tried to fight against the strings, giving them a hard yank with his glitter-gloved hands, but they only jerked him faster and faster, his thick-heeled boots clattering to keep up.

And then the strings were suddenly in his hands, their severed ends falling onto stage left with a smacking noise. 

_Weird_ , Vince's mouth said, moving of its own accord. 

Then everything began to fade out, and he began to wake up. 

"Ahhh!" Vince stretched, his hand tangling in what felt like a pile of wild animal fur. He opened one eye. "Howard?"

Howard was sprawled out on the ground, the upper-half of his body collapsed awkwardly on top of Vince's legs. 

"Hey." Vince jiggled his knees, and Howard let out a croak. "Open up your small eyes." 

"Ugh." Howard reluctantly opened his eyes and smacked his lips together, as if the inside of his mouth tasted bad. "God, what time is it?" 

"Time for hot cocoa and nutella sandwiches." Vince scooted backwards and leaned against the object behind him, which was in fact a hotel bed. Not that he noticed.

"I'm not having nutella sandwiches for breakfast again. Or for dinner. They give me the weird dreamings." 

"Weird dreamings! I had some of them. I was someone's crazy marionette, see, and I was dancing a treat all over the stage. The strings kept tuggin' at me back, though, and I wanted to hack 'em free."

Howard looked a touch puzzled, but not entirely surprised. "You dreamt that too, eh?" 

Vince grinned. "You bet. Locust dreams, locust dreams...

"...gonna eat your brain at the seams," Howard finished. Then he coughed and looked around. "Hey, did you do the midnight interior designer thing last night?" 

Vince examined his fingernails. "No way. I had myself an early sleepie." 

"What's with the new drapery, then?" Howard asked, pointing at the subtly floral curtains that hung from the windows. "And... huh. There wasn't wall to wall carpeting in here before, was there? Just that old defunct rug of Naboo's." 

"Hm." Vince finally tore his eyes away from his peeling varnish-job and had a look about the room. "Whoa! D'ya reckon I did some re-decorating in my sleep? Hey, I'm pretty good. We have a real bed!" He pulled himself on top of it, testing out the bounce. 

"Yeahhhh." Howard stood up uneasily. "Could you just... put the room back right again, please?" 

"Why? This is genius." Vince was now on his feet, jumping on the bed as if it were an acrobat's trampoline. 

"Because it feels weird." 

"You're not jokin'," Vince said, attempting to do a cheerleader's splits. "Much bouncier than that old sofa." 

Howard sighed. "No, Vince, I'm not talking about the bed." He slowly paced the small area, noting the almost-empty tumbler of scotch on top the television. The crumpled papers peeping out from beneath the dresser. The open suitcase that was filled with bright, soft fabrics reminiscent of Vince's own wardrobe. "Is this our hut?" he finally asked, then, with his heart hammering in his chest, he took a step toward the closed curtains. 

"It's ours now," Vince said blithely, flopping flat on his back and causing the mattress to squeak in protest. 

"Yeah, but..." Howard toyed with the hem of the curtains, daring himself to draw them open. " _What's_ ours, is a better question." 

"What are you doing, Howard?" Vince asked suddenly, watching Howard with an uncharacteristic sense of foreboding. Somehow, he didn't think those curtains ought to be touched.

"I'm a man of action," Howard muttered. Then he repeated it, like a mantra. "A man of action." 

There was a whisking noise as the curtains were yanked open with a flourish.

Light flooded the room like a beacon from Old Gregg's mangina. 

In perfect harmony, Howard and Vince began to scream.

***

Noel thought the rain seemed much louder with Julian gone.

Julian wasn't gone long, however. No sooner had the door closed behind his back than it opened again and he re-entered, his face leached of all colour, the rain framing his silhouette in a shimmering back-drop. 

"What's out there?" Noel asked, still huddled beneath his blanket. 

"The Zooniverse," Julian said, his voice strange and thin, like a man speaking from the far end of a tunnel. 

Noel licked his lips, then rolled onto his knees and came upright, carefully swathing the blankets around his naked body. Julian was still standing in doorway stiffer than a tin soldier, and Noel shuffled towards him, peering around his mate's shoulder and out into the rain. 

It was so different. It was so _the same_. 

Wind rustled the dripping tree branches and infused the air with the rich scent of wet soil. A few metres off, an extra -- no, a grounds-keeper -- was emptying a rubbish bin. Directly adjacent from the grounds-keeper was Jack the fox's enclosure, and Jack himself stared back at Noel with suspicious, squinty eyes. Noel couldn't pull his gaze away from the creature. It wasn't the animatronic prop used in series two, but it wasn't quite a real fox, either. It was more like a hybrid of the two, like a living caricature of a fox, more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than any real animal should be. 

"Fucking hell," Noel breathed. 

"What are you looking at, busy britches?" Jack asked, his tail twitching angrily. 

Noel made a small noise of alarm and slammed the door shut. "Oh god," he chanted. "Oh god!" He clapped his hands over his ears, momentarily forgetting his blankets, and began to pace in a small circle, chanting "It can't... no... I..." and other nonsense under his breath. 

Then Julian had him by the shoulders, shaking him hard. "Calm down," he said, forcing Noel to stop in his tracks. "Don't think about it. Don't think about how or why, or you'll go mad."

"Are we dead?" Noel asked, the question unexpected and dousing him like ice-water. 

"No!" Julian said, then again, in a lower voice, "no. I promise." 

"Then why?... How?"

"I told you not to think about why or how," Julian said. 

"Sorry," Noel sniffed. 

"Look..." Julian kneaded his shoulders, and Noel thought, for once, that Julian's greater stature was reassuring rather than irritating. "You're real and alive, it doesn't matter where."

"And you're here," Noel added, relieved to find that his words were no longer edged with hysteria. 

"Yeah, sure I am," Julian said, then trotted his fingers back and forth before Noel's eyes, making little clicking sounds with his tongue. "See the pony? See his gentle hooooves." 

Noel let out a small giggle in spite of himself. "That's such crap psychotherapy." 

Julian shrugged. "Always worked on Bob Fossil," he said, then gave Noel a more searching look. "You all right now?" 

"Yeah, I think so." Noel hugged his bare arms and shivered. "God, it's really cold in here. Weird, 'cos the set was always so hot. All them lights, remember? And now there's wind, and rain, and draughts..." he trailed off, biting his lip in thought. 

"I think there's clothing around here as well, if his nudeness can be bothered to look," Julian said, pointing at a corner cupboard that hadn't been there before. 

"Oh." Noel stared down at his naked body and the blankets that were puddled around his feet, blushing slightly. He stepped gingerly over to the cupboard, and Julian gallantly turned his back and set about washing out the sticky blender -- as if washing up were the normal thing to be doing. The cupboard itself was packed with bright clothing, tee-shirts and jeans, mostly, and Noel recognised all of them as being from his series one wardrobe. Even Vince's green zooniform jacket, which Noel had customised himself, was in there, crammed between a leather studded jacket and a striped poncho. Noel pulled it from the hanger, fingering the rare Kiss Army badge he'd nicked off the jacket before they'd started filming series two. He'd lost that badge later while taking the train to his parents', but now here it was, not even dirtied up like it had been in real life. 

Between pulling on a pair of jeans and a fuchia-and-orange tee-shirt, Noel very briefly wondered if maybe this place wasn't the hell he'd first thought it was. 

But then came a fierce knocking at the hut door, and that brief thought disappeared like bad cologne in the wind. 

"Open up you two! What are you doing? Cuddling in front of the fire like hibernating eels? OPEN UP!" 

Julian and Noel quickly exchanged glances. 

"Should we?" Julian asked.

"I think we'd better," Noel said. 

Julian cleared his throat, brushed his hands off on his trousers, and opened the door. Bob Fossil stumbled inside, thrown forward by the force of his knocking. 

"Hullo there, Rich..." Julian began, his face twitching in alarm as he realised his mistake. "Rich.. rich. Rich man," he concluded, swallowing visibly. 

"Rich man? I'm wearing freakin' polyester, Moon!" 

"Yes, Mr Fossil, I know that. And might I say that you look very fine in your blue polyester this morning. With your little blue trousers and your... nicely-fitted shirt," Julian stammered, tugging nervously on his own zooniform jacket. 

Noel couldn't help but roll his eyes. It was only Bob Fossil, Rich's slightly more annoying alter-ego. What was there to be nervous about? "Oi, Fossil," he drawled, setting a cowboy hat on his head and taking a step forward. "What d'ya want?" 

Fossil looked at Noel through the calculating slits of his eyes. "You're a vision in fuchia, Vincey," he said, rather tartly. "And if Moon would have hauled his useless hump over to my office, I wouldn't have had to come here just to tell you that today's porpoise derby has been rained out."

"Gee." Julian clicked his tongue. "Shame, that." 

"And that doesn't mean you two get a carefree day of distributing millet," Fossil shouted, spattering Julian's face with sour spittle. "We had an incident in the Moon World last night. All the night-time critters broke out of their cages and now they're roamin' all over the place. Bats are droppin' guano in the chameleon boudoir. It's nocturnal anarchy out there!" 

"Yeah? What d'ya want us to do about it?" Noel asked, planting his hands on his hips. 

"Only two things," Fossil said, looking as if the top of his head might blow off in a burst of rage. "FIX! IT!" 

Noel staggered backwards, literally blown away by the power of Fossil's screams. "All right!" he squeaked, straightening his hat. "We'll get right on it." 

Fossil's only reply was the slam of the door. 

"What was that?" Julian barked, lunging forward and swiping the hat from Noel's head. "Since when is Vince Noir the second cousin of Dirty Harry?" 

"Hey!" Noel grabbed for the hat, but Julian held it up high, out of reach. "You were the one schmoozing him like teacher's pet. He's not real, remember? Just some character that we wrote up."

Julian plopped the hat back on Noel's head. "See that?" he asked, wiping off his face and stretching out his hand, which was glistening and wet from Fossil's spit-shower. "If the man can drench me with that much saliva, then he's real enough to make us miserable. That much I can promise you." 

"Disgusting." Noel backed well away, feeling tainted by the very sight. "Don't remember Fossil being that irritating in real life." 

"What do you mean, 'real life'?" Julian ducked over the kitchen sink and splashed water over his face. 

"You know... the way we wrote him." 

"But this isn't real life, this is what the Zooniverse would be if it _were_ real."

Noel dropped into a chair, his brain smarting from the metaphysical cartwheels implied in Julian's words. "So in the real Zooniverse, Fossil's an even bigger dick than the way Rich played him, and Howard and Vince are...?"

Julian pivoted around, drying his face and hands with a tea-towel. "How should I know?"

"You seem assured in your knowledge so far." 

"Yeah? Well, I'm not. I'm just entertaining guess-work 'cos it's the only thing that keeps me from screaming my bloody tits off." Julian tossed the tea-towel on the counter with a scowl. 

Noel couldn't help but smirk. "Let's just say it's a dream, and we've got to follow it through to the end before we can wake up."

Taking a seat across from Noel, Julian mulled this over. "What d'ya mean, follow it through?" 

"Let's go check out the chameleon boudoir, round up some stray bats for Fossil, and see where that takes us." 

"Oh no," Julian said, shaking his head vigourously. "I'm not going to bend to the whims of that deranged American. Howard Moon might pony-up at the snap of Fossil's fingers, but I'm not Howard Moon."

Noel sighed and spread his fingers out on the table, momentarily thrown by the fact that his fingernails were clean and un-varnished, whereas when he'd last checked, they'd been a peeling-blue colour. "What other options do we have? I don't fancy the idea of sittin' round this hut, driving myself mental over the whole situation."

Julian gave Noel a resentful look. "You know, you'd be surprised what a good session of introspection can achieve. Why do you have to chase every little shiny thing in your path? You're like Ricky Racoon, washing crackers until they dissolve into nothing."

"Yeah? Well Ricky Racoon'd be depressed if I didn't give him crackers to wash. He'd go on the razz for weeks." 

"Razz... is there any scotch around here, you think?" 

"No," Noel said, sighing again. "I already looked. The only cupboard is filled with my -- with Vince's clothes."

Julian lowered his head and slowly banged it on the table-top. "Maybe Naboo's got that hookah?"

"Yeah, I guess he might..." Noel suddenly snapped his fingers, then reached across the table and grabbed Julian's hair, lifting his head slightly. "Hey, Naboo!" 

"First you call me Howard, then you call me Naboo?" 

Noel let go of Julian's hair, and his head hit the table with a muted thunk. "No! I mean that we should talk to Naboo. On the show, he's the one who's always gettin' Howard and Vince out of scrapes." 

"Yeah, in the episodes where we're too pissed to write proper endings."

"Shut up. That cheesy formula is part of the show's charm." 

"Fine." Julian made a face that suggested he was fresh out of any better options. "Let's go talk to the wee shaman." 

Noel pressed his lips into a thin line. "You go talk to him." 

"Me? Why just me?" Julian tapped his fingers against the table-top. "Because of Mike?"

Noel gave a stiff nod.

Julian's hand snaked out and took hold of Noel's wrist. "Look, wherever your brother is, he's still your brother. And he's... fine, I'm sure."

"Yeah..." Noel trailed off and swallowed thickly. "But I don't want to look at him and know that he doesn't know me. It'd be too weird."

"He knows you. And 'he' isn't even Mike. He's Naboo, who knows you as Vince. Just pretend we're in a rehearsal." 

"But if it were a rehearsal, Mike would arse up his lines and we'd all start laughing and ruin the take. That's not gonna happen this time." Absurdly, Noel felt as if he might cry. He struggled the feeling back, for Julian's sake. 

"I don't want to leave you here," Julian said, squeezing Noel's hand, then glancing at it and letting go. Noel could still feel the warm imprint of his fingers. _But he let go,_ he thought unhappily. _It's one thing to grope about on stage for a laugh, but when we're alone he goes out of his way not to..._ Noel shook the thoughts away. He didn't want to think about what they might mean. 

"What is it?" Julian prompted, searching Noel's face over. 

"Nothing. I'll go with you." 

"You sure?"

"Yeah. 'Cos if this place is anything like the madhouse we invented, then you could be taken to Monkey Hell or vanish into the Tundra while I'm not lookin'." 

Julian grinned despite himself. "Don't worry. I'll do all the talking." 

Noel nodded and stood up. Julian had always been a much better actor than he was, but Noel could pretend to be unaffected if he tried. He pushed the cowboy hat down low, feeling oddly as if he were protected by the larger-than-life shadow of Vince Noir. But then again, this wasn't the first time he'd felt safe in that particular shadow. 

"Let's go," he said, snapping his fingers.

***

Howard pulled the wadded curtains away from his eyes and screamed again. As if on cue, Vince joined him.

"It's so dirty! Oh god, it's hideous. What kind of place have you brought me to, Howard?

"Wh.. what?" Howard squeaked, his voice gone thin from all that screaming. "I didn't bring you here, you berk!"

Vince's face was flattened against the window, his wide eyes peering out at the street full of mini-cabs, buses, and pedestrians below. "Good god, it's enormous! How did we get all the way to Tokyo?" 

"Tokyo?" Howard said, rather doubtfully. He looked out at the chimneys and rooftops stretched out before them, nearly dizzy at the never-ending sight of them. 

"We should hit the shops," Vince said, suddenly cheerful. "Have you got any money?" 

"We can't leave, we don't know where we are!" 

"Or _who_ we are," Vince added, suddenly pulling back and studying his reflection in the window. "Where's my hair!?"

Howard furrowed his brow, noticing for the first time that Vince's hair was different than he remembered. It was seemed darker, for one, and a bit longer and more back-combed than how he usually wore it. "It's been replaced," he said flatly, and Vince shrieked and ran for the bathroom. 

Howard followed him at his own cautious pace, and by the time he joined Vince in front of the mirror, Vince was rubbing his locks with an expression of evident pleasure on his face. 

"Wow, it's really good. I must have done it in my sleep." 

"Do you ever sleep in your sleep?" Howard asked, disgruntled. "Can't you see what's going on here? It's clear that some bad ju ju's afoot." He squinted in the bright lights surrounding the massive mirror. There was a large bag of toiletries spilling over the counter, including countless tubes of glitter and moisturiser, all of them tumbled together like a mess of children's crayons and paint-pots. Without even bothering to look down, Vince managed to skip his fingers through the jumble and pull out a black eyeliner pencil. The ease at which Vince was able to find the exact product he was looking for was discomforting to Howard. It was as if the stuff belonged to him, but how could it? Howard had never been in a bathroom this extravagant in his whole life, and if he hadn't, then Vince hadn't, either. With some struggle, Howard threw the uncomfortable feeling off. So Vince was at ease with beauty products. That wasn't entirely unusual, after all. 

"Good lighting," Vince murmured, giving himself a dramatic cat's-eye.

"How long are you going to primp?" 

"Don't you want to join in?" 

"No! I don't mess about with that sort of thing." 

"Don't you?" Vince backed away from the mirror and studied Howard's reflection. "You look as if you've been moisturising." 

"What? I do not!" Howard squinted and examined his face in the mirror. Both it and the hair looked exactly as he remembered: disheveled and a slightly worse for wear. 

"Yeah, you do. You look..." Vince bit his bottom lip. "...Good," he finished, then added, rather hastily: "For you." 

Howard looked at himself again, noticing for the first time that he wasn't dressed in one of his loudly-patterned jazz shirts, but in a subdued, olive-green button down. His hair, which he had taken on first glance to be merely disheveled, suddenly leaped out to him as "stylishly mussed." 

"You did this to me!" Howard cried out in accusation, pointing at Vince with a tube of glitter. 

"Hey, I'm no magician!" Vince protested, backing away. 

Howard opened his mouth to counter, but was interrupted by a fierce knocking at the door. 

"What the fuck's going on?" a sleepy, muffled voice called out. "Why're you guys screaming at the crack of dawn?" 

Both Vince and Howard backed up against the bathroom counter, staring at the door where the knocking had come from. "Who is that?" Vince whispered. 

"How should I know?" 

"Hey," the voice said, sounding slightly more agitated and, as such, suddenly familiar. "You gonna open the door or what?" 

"Fossil!" Vince yelped. 

Howard nodded, privately relieved to hear the sound of their boss's voice. Though he hated to admit it, it was the first sensible voice he'd heard all day. Straightening up, he slowly walked towards the door and twisted the knob, then peered through the cracked opening. It was Fossil, all right, sipping a hot beverage from a paper cup and outfitted, for the first time ever, in something other than that dreadful blue polyester outfit. Instead, he was wearing a cable-knit jumper and a pair of jeans. He looked, to Howard's eyes, alarmingly normal. As such, Howard immediately narrowed his gaze and hissed "what do you want?" 

Fossil lifted an eyebrow. "I thought we were having breakfast." 

"Where? When?" Howard asked, quickly looking from side to side and noting that Fossil was standing in what appeared to be a long, carpeted hallway, lined with identical doors, all of them shut fast. 

"Whenever. I need to shower first, though. You assholes woke me up with all your noise." 

"What assholes?" Howard demanded. Fossil was behaving very strangely, he thought, sipping at that hot beverage as if he had nothing better to do than take showers and eat breakfast. 

Now it was Fossil's turn to give Howard a strange look. "You and Noel."

"Noel?" Howard asked, utterly perplexed. 

"Hey, can I come in? They didn't leave any little baby shampoos in my shower, I wanna snag some of yours." 

Howard opened the door, rather reluctantly. "Fine, but I think you'll find that there's no little babies being shampooed in our shower." 

Fossil laughed -- it was a strange, disarming sound -- and brushed past Howard, chucking his cup into the rubbish bin in the corner. "Nice eyeliner, Mommy," he said to Vince, popping into the bathroom long enough to fetch a few miniature bottles of shampoo from the ledge in the shower. 

"Hey, I didn't say you could have them!" Vince protested, still backed cautiously against the bathroom counter. 

"Oh, come on, you don't squeeze this common crap on your locks."

Vince paused, then half-shrugged. Fossil did have a point. 

Shoving the shampoos into his pocket, Fossil looked at Vince for a minute, then slowly shifted his gaze over to Howard. "You guys seem pretty jumpy. Did something happen last night?" 

"Yes!" Vince burst out. He quickly shut his mouth, though, at the sight of Howard frantically gesturing for him to be quiet from behind Fossil's back. 

"Ooookay," Fossil drawled out, slowly backing out of the bathroom. "Count me out of that." He flumped down on the edge of the bed and turned the television on, flicking through the channels with the remote. "You really shouldn't be fighting, you know. Tour's over. You can sleep regular hours now." 

Vince and Howard exchanged looks of confusion. Howard gestured, and Vince eased out of the bathroom and joined him just outside the door, where they both stood and watched their boss idly scratch his belly and switch over to a news programme. 

"Football, solar flares, teenagers drinking. Same thing they were talking about an hour ago. Man, I hate the British." Fossil turned the television off and looked up at the boys expectantly. "You _were_ fighting, right? I mean, that's what the screams were about, right, because it didn't sound like mating calls." He chuckled at his own joke and tossed the remote aside.

Howard stood up straight. "What do you want, Mr Fossil?" he asked bluntly, steeling himself for... well, he didn't know just what, but knowing Fossil, it wouldn't be anything good.

"Mr Fossil?" Fossil said, raising an eyebrow. 

"Look," Vince piped up, taking a step forward. "We want to know what's been done to our hut."

"Your what?" Fossil stood up slowly.

"Like, why've we only got one bed?" Vince continued, pointing at the duvet he'd so recently rumpled with his acrobatic act. "I'm not Howard's girlfriend, you know. Haven't I explained that to you about twenty times by now?"

"Shut up, Vince," Howard hissed, frowning.

"Umm..." Fossil blinked very rapidly and ran a hand through his hair. "Is this new material, or something?"

Vince sneered slightly. "Looks like the same hair you've always had," he said, then added, under his breath, " _awful_."

"Ooookay," Fossil said, in that same long, drawn-out way. "I think I'd better go have that shower now. I'll tell Mike that you two are coming down off something. Try to be yourselves again by three for that interview." 

"What interview?" Howard demanded, realising that he was now pointing the same tube of glitter at Fossil that he'd earlier pointed at Vince, this time brandishing it as if it were a very short sword. "Are you replacing us? Is that what this is about?" 

"I bet he is," Vince said eagerly, ducking a bit behind Howard's protective height. "He's going to leave us in a strange place without any shampoo, and will hire someone from the flea circus to replace us." 

"The flea circus!" Howard exclaimed, giving Fossil the full boon of his glare. "How dare you." 

Fossil clapped his hands against his chest and shook his head vigorously. "What the fuck are you two _talking_ about?" he burst out. Then he backed off a few steps, eyeing the pair warily. 

"I won't let you replace us, Sir, or let you lead us through the gutters of this filthy metropolis," Howard said grandly, again brandishing the glitter.

Vince sighed. "What he means is: you're a blue twit, and we're done with your tea-time puppet show."

Howard looked over his shoulder, glaring. "That is _not_ what I mean. Puppet show? What are you on about?"

Vince screwed his face up in frustration. "Aw, come on, Howard. Don't you feel it? He's been dictating our sorry lives for years. Now's our chance to break free!" 

Howard stopped short, startled by this sudden diversion. It was just like Vince to bounce around like a ping-pong ball, though, and while Howard wasn't precisely sure _what_ feeling Vince was talking about, but he did know that he felt different than he had yesterday. Like a million doors had suddenly been thrown open, each offering both him and Howard an opportunity to flee... to where, he wasn't sure, but the very prospect was both scary and invigorating. Much like his glimpse of that huge, gray city outside the window. So whatever Vince might mean by _break free_ , Howard thought he could follow that impulse. "Right," Howard said, turning his attention back to Fossil. "You can't replace us... because we quit! Ha!" 

"Ha!" Vince echoed, bouncing slightly on the soles of his boots. 

"Okay, I'm leaving," Fossil said gruffly, seeming unimpressed by this announcement. "You two are being nuts." Then he began to move for the door, muttering under his breath.

"Vince... stop him!" Howard hissed, making a useless swipe at Fossil with the glitter tube. 

"Why?" Vince said, looking confused.

"Just...!" Howard gestured uselessly, hoping it would somehow magically translate over to Vince that Fossil shouldn't be allowed to leave the room. Howard had a creeping sensation that if he did, he might lock them in or something, and the prospect of being locked in, of having to stay in this room where it felt like they'd spent their whole lives (despite having never even _seen_ the room before, it still felt like they'd spent years here) filled Howard with unspeakable dread. So many creeping sensations all at once -- and all of them new. Weirdly, Howard felt as if he were acting on intuition for the first time in his life, and his heart beat loudly in his ears with words he could clearly decipher: _I am, I am, I am, I am_.

Vince reacted instantly, with his own brand of intuition that had been honed over years of snatching his friend away from the brink of death and disaster. He unslung the can of hairspray from his back trouser pocket and uncapped it with a single, deft move of his thumb. Then he promptly gave Fossil a face full of maximum shine, maximum hold.

"Fuck me!" Fossil screamed, his hands immediately flying up to his face. "Ow! Oh my fucking fuck that hurts like a mother... fuck!" Fossil's knees crumpled slightly, as if he might collapse, and Howard grasped him by the shoulders, guiding him to the bed.

"God," Vince said, paling slightly. "Never heard him swear his tits off quite like that before."

"Yeah." Howard licked his lips anxiously. He'd expected Fossil to sound off, but these were the yelps and cries of genuine pain -- not the melodramatic nonsense he'd braced himself for. "We'd better tie him up," Howard said decisively.

"What? Why?"

"Because... I don't know. He might tell someone that you hairsprayed him," Howard said desperately. This flying-by-the-seat-of-his-trousers thing was hard to adjust to.

"Fuck right I'll tell someone," Fossil snuffled, still rubbing at his eyes. 

Vince moved towards the suitcase on the floor. "I'll find something," he said, thrusting his hands into the wadded fabrics and unearthing a striped neck-tie. 

Within minutes, they had firmly trussed Fossil to the radiator under the window, Vince kindly tucking a pillow behind his head for support. Fossil's face was a fright of red, swollen tissue, and between frequent bouts of cursing he pleaded with both of them to "stop being assholes" and untie him. "Come on, Julian," he moaned, "at least leave me the bottle of scotch." 

"Why's he keep calling you that?" Vince asked, scoring the scotch from the dresser and placing the uncapped bottle between Fossil's knees. 

"I don't know," Howard said. "Why's he keep calling you 'Noel'?"

Vince shrugged. "He's gone wrong." 

"You two are such _assholes_ ," Fossil sighed, looking curiously defeated as he managed to tip the bottle of scotch into his mouth without spilling any.

Vince and Howard exchanged shrugs. In all their experiences together, nothing had quite prepared them for this. Whatever _this_ was.

"Come on, let's go," Vince said, fetching up a leather jacket from the suitcase and slipping into it. "He's making my skin crawl."

"Yeah," Howard agreed, joining Vince at the suitcase. Unfortunately, everything in it was Vince-sized and Vince-styled. Not a good roomy tweed in sight. "Look at him, sucking on that scotch like a weak little... weak thing."

"His face all red like a blubbering infant's," Vince added, attempting a scowl. The scowl faded as he caught sight of Howard's own worried face. "Did we do something bad?" he asked in a whisper. 

"Bad? To Fossil?" Howard tried hard to sound incredulous, but he could tell from the nervous way Vince was plucking at his wrist-band that he hadn't fooled either of them. "We really should go," he said quickly, deciding he would have to brave the outside world without tweed.

"Wait," Vince said, stopping Howard just as he reached the door. "Where are we goin'?" 

"You know..." Howard made what he thought was a perfectly formed up-up-and-away pose. "Away."

"Oh," Vince said, slowly grinning. "Right!" 

Then they entered the hallway together, facing down the long line of closed doors on either side.

***

_What the truth is, is this:_

_He wants to be able to read you with certainty. From the expectant drumming of your fingers to the wayward tousle of your hair. It's should all be straightforward, no mystery about it whatsoever, but that trick you have of smiling with only half your mouth makes him think there are things about you he still doesn't know. If only your words could come from a script; if only he could write the movement of your lips against his into real life. But it all happens behind the illusion of the curtain: your breath filling him like a slender instrument; your hands anchored on his hips with the promise of ownership. If the tongue that touches his could speak at this moment, what would it say? He wonders. He wants to ask. But he doesn't have the question -- you've stolen it from him, but then you pass it back, wet and hot like a kiss. Then the curtain lifts, and it scatters with the fever of applause. Dies away and disappears._

_Sometimes it's hard to know what's real, and what's just for show._

***


	2. part two

  
**A Journey Through Time and Space**

***

part two  


What do you think of this?

_Julian strummed out a few chords on the guitar, his fingers nimbly working the strings into a faint vibrato. Listening, Noel pinched the joint between his fingers and took a few jerky puffs off it, then carefully stubbed the roach out in the ashtray. He stared up at the ceiling, finding shapes in the wavering plaster that seemed to match the tune Julian was pulling out of the smoky air. The notes were good, he thought, but they seemed to be in want of something. Another instrument to sing along with them, maybe._

__It sounds lonely. __

 _Julian just laughed. Softly, under his breath. It was supposed to sound lonely, he said. The title was_ Isolation. 

Yeah, but you're not, are you? 

_Instead of answering, he continued playing the guitar. Noel turned his head and saw that Julian had his eyes closed, his head tipped over so that his hair fell over his face, putting his features in shadow. When he finally spoke, his words came beneath the rise and fall of the music. Don't be an idiot, he said. Everyone's lonely. That's what life's all about, finding a way to fight off the loneliness until everything finally ends._

__You're fucking maudlin sometimes, you know that? __

_Another laugh. Julian said he supposed Noel was never lonely. Then he put the guitar aside and they were left together in the shared silence._

_Julian was wrong, of course. And a part of him knew it._

***

The sun had finally forced its way through the clouds, drying out the puddles that birds were busily bathing themselves in, shaking their wings and chirping mindlessly, as if nothing were amiss. Of course, to them nothing _was_ amiss, except for the two zookeepers who looked curiously out of place as they slunk out of their hut, blinking like two snails who'd never before ventured out of their shell. Snails don't exactly blink, of course, and they look appropriately odd when they try. The same could be said of the zookeepers, who apart from their hesitant behaviour looked the same as ever: one bright and bedecked in glittery plumage, the other rumpled and dressed to match a dung heap. The birds themselves were vividly purple in colour and sounded quite like no bird Julian had ever heard before. He glared at them, so stupid and happy. So perfectly content to be as they were.

"What's wrong?" Noel asked, and Julian felt him briefly clutch at the back of his jacket.

"Nothing." Julian forced himself to look away from the birds, which meant he had no choice but to look at the rest of the Zooniverse. It was bigger than he'd imagined. Bigger than the ten by ten metre set, certainly, but more contained than a real zoo. The labyrinthine path they were on wound past various animal enclosures, then disappeared into a stand of trees right where the beverage station had once been. Julian thought absently that he could have done with a coffee right now. An Irish one, heavy on the Irish. He felt, rather than saw, Noel budge up next to him, keeping close as if Julian might spin away into unknown orbits.

"Do those birds look purple to you?" 

"Yes," Julian said in a distant way, concentrating on trying to figure out where Naboo's kiosk would be in this three-dimensional version of zoo hell. "Don't look at them."

"Aw, why not? They're sort of cute, splashin' about like that."

"Fine. Shall we find some bread and feed them the crumbs? Want to throw sardines to the otters, while we're at it?" 

Noel drew away, faintly hurt. "Don't have to bite my head off."

Julian sighed. "Sorry. I just don't think you should get caught up in things just now." 

"Things? What things?" 

"Well, just look around," Julian said, gesturing at the festive purple birds, then toward an enclosure where two lemurs sat on a tree branch, grooming each other in a decidedly adorable fashion. "It's all strange and beautiful. You know, an awful lot like you. I can just see you gettin' blinded by the shiny and deciding you'd like to settle down here for a while."

Julian expected a protesting outburst from Noel, but his friend was curiously silent. Silent because he had wandered away from Julian and was sniffing a large, decorous blossom that bloomed almost obscenely from one of the shrubs that lined the path, inhaling with an expression of bliss on his face that suggested he'd never smelled anything so divine in his life. 

"What're you doing?" Julian demanded, pulling Noel away from the shrub. 

"God, smell that thing. It's exactly like candy floss! I want to have a taste." Noel reached out to pluck the blossom from the shrub, his eyes wide and glazed over with child-like gluttony.

"Stop that!" Julian slapped Noel's hand away. "Didn't you ever read about Persephone and the pomegranate seeds?"

Noel rubbed his hand, a perplexed puppy who'd just been swatted with the evening news. "Is that the bloke who drowned in his own reflection?" 

"No!" Julian frowned. There was something familiar about this conversation. 

Noel shrugged. "I don't really read that old-timey rubbish." 

"Well what about the Wizard of Oz? I know you've seen that. Don't you remember the poppy fields?" Julian skipped in place a few times in an eerily inspired imitation of a Kansas farm girl. "Dorothy and her mates nance through the poppies, and they smell so sweet they forget about seeing the wizard and decide to just lay down and sleep for a while." 

Noel smirked at the sight of Julian skipping, mix of clumsiness and charm that it was. "We're not off to see a wizard though, are we? So your comparison hardly applies. Plus, they were completely high. Poppies, you know."

"We're off to see a shaman, though. They're in the same subset." 

Noel worried at his lower lip. "Naboo, right. Maybe I should stay here and smell the flowers?" 

Julian just shook his head, saying nothing because he knew Noel well enough to know when he was stalling. 

Sighing, Noel adjusted his cowboy hat yet again, the band of his eyes suddenly shadowed and unreadable. "All right. So where's he at, then?" 

"Should be along this way." Julian tugged at the crook of Noel's arm once, then rounded the lemurs' enclosure, heading for the open area where he approximated Naboo's kiosk to be. And so it was, the camel's shutters closed and marked with a sign that read _Shaman Off-Duty: Please Visit During Regular Zoo Hours_. 

Noel looked at his bare wrist, as if studying an invisible watch. "Guess the zoo's not open yet. Maybe we'd best leave off."

Julian gave Noel a sharp look. "Why?"

"He could be sleeping." Noel shrugged in an unconvincing way. 

Julian lifted a finger. "Just stay back there. It'll be fine." Then he approached the door to the kiosk and knocked rather gingerly, aware that he too was anxious at the prospect of facing down the man who should be Mike... but wasn't. 

There was no answer for a moment, and both Julian and Noel stood frozen to the spot, poised as if ready to run at the slightest provocation. Julian had a brief, wild moment where he wondered what would happen if whoever answered the door wasn't Naboo -- maybe it would be someone they had never even imagined, in all their late night writing sessions where they'd clumsily invented others like Saboo and Tony Harrison. Suddenly, the thought of Naboo _not_ being at the door seemed much scarier than anything else. 

Then the door opened, and no one was there. 

But Julian, accustomed to having towered over Mike for years, automatically looked down. And there he was, outfitted in a midnight blue dressing gown that precisely matched the shade of his turban, a cup of tea situated between his tiny hands. 

"Heyyy. Naboo," Julian said slowly. The name was like a new flavour in his mouth, despite having said it many times before. 

Naboo yawned and leaned against the doorframe. "What do you want?"

Julian twitched. "It's me, Howard."

"I know that." Naboo peered around Julian and studied Noel without expression. "What have you two done now?" 

"Nothin'!" Noel squeaked, unable to stop himself from speaking up. "We're... hey! All right, Naboo! How's your morning so far?" 

Naboo blew placidly on his tea. "Interrupted?" 

"Yeah," Julian said, clearing his throat unnecessarily. "Could we have a word? Vince and me, that is."

"I suppose. Wipe your feet off." Naboo turned around and disappeared into the kiosk, leaving Julian and Noel to stamp their wet feet against the mat and wordlessly grasp at the others' arms before entering, buffeting the little bit of strength between them. The room itself was dimly lit and smelled faintly of hashish, and when Julian pushed through curtain of hanging beads he stopped short in his tracks, his mouth falling open in surprise. 

"What's this?" Julian said abruptly, looking around. The room wasn't at all like he remembered. Instead, it was a lot more like the series two flat that Vince and Julian had shared with Naboo and Bollo. There was the black and white sofa in the middle of the room, and the bar that was shaped like a ship set up in the corner. Psychedelic wallpaper beamed down at them from the walls, and the coffee table in front of the sofa was crowded with black magic tomes and a large crystal ball that swirled with subtle colours. 

"Hey! Why's it look like --" Noel broke off, having received a sharp nudge in the ribs from Julian. 

"Look like what?" Naboo plumped the cushions on the sofa, moving his cumbersome hookah aside and taking a seat, almost vanishing into the cushions as he did so.

"Like... bigger," Noel said, his voice audibly quivering. 

Naboo looked around in a considering way. "Smoke," he said, simply. "It widens all the pathways."

"External paths as well as internal ones, eh Naboo?" Julian said, chuckling rather stupidly. God, he hated the way he sounded in here. His voices, his words... they were so _Howard_. As for the change in Naboo's living space, it made an odd sort of sense, he supposed. Series two bleeding into series one, the Zooniverse expanding to include particular extensions of itself. Hell, Bollo was probably asleep in the bedroom, sleeping off last night's deejay gig. Julian hoped to hell he stayed back there. He didn't think he could cope with a real live talking ape. 

Naboo crossed his legs, unconcerned. "You wanted a word?" 

"Yeah!" Noel said, his voice a shade too bright. He crossed the room and sat down next to Naboo, rubbing his knees. "You know how it goes. We've got ourselves into a bit of a situation and when wonderin' who could in the Zooniverse sort it out, we thought 'Naboo, that's who!'" 

"I knew you two must have done something," Naboo said, frowning. 

"No, Sir," Julian said, raising up his hands. "Something's been done to us, if you must know."

"Like what?"

"We've been..." Noel trailed off uncertainly, catching Julian's eye. "Messed about with." 

"That's nothing new," Naboo said, staring into his tea. "You've suffered unnatural vanity your whole life, and Howard has an inferiority complex that he tries to compensate for in ways that make him come off a fool." 

"I have not!" Noel said, looking offended. 

"I do not!" Julian said, at precisely the same moment. 

Naboo looked back and forth between them. "I see." 

"Look," Julian began, pulling up a chair and wishing desperately that he and Noel had planned this out a bit before hand. "We can't really tell you how we've gone wrong. But trust me, we have." 

Naboo looked as if he'd just been asked to swallow a lemon whole. "Trust you?" 

"Yes," Noel said solemnly. 

The shaman who was not Mike bent over slightly, his shoulders shaking in what Julian first took to be a strange shaman's ritual, but soon realised was a supressed laugh. Julian sighed and slumped over in his chair. This was not going well, and unfortunately, staring at his lap had yet to yeild any answers this morning. 

"Mike... _Mike_?" 

Julian yanked his head back up. Noel had dropped on his knees in front of Naboo and was looking closely at the shaman, as if trying to catch a glimpse of his brother through that very real curtain of black hair. His face had a dreadful beseeching quality to it, his blue eyes as luminous as a kicked kitten's. Julian wanted to stop Noel, to pull him away and save him from what was sure to be a heartbreaking sort of realisation, but he couldn't. Noel was already clutching at Naboo's hands, his face twisted up as he pleaded with the man he thought was his brother. "You have to help us, Mike. We've got to figure out a way to get back. You know me, right? You know who I am."

Naboo only stared, appearing vaguely horrified as he tried to politely withdraw himself from Noel's clutches.

"You know me," Noel repeated, his voice going higher, into the upper registers of hysteria. "I'm your brother! Stop that..." Noel yanked Mike's hands back into his own. "It's your brother, _Noel_. I know that you know me!"

"Noel." Julian rose to his feet and tried to gently pull his friend away. 

"Fuck off!" Noel said, giving Julian's knees a useless shove. He came to his feet and stalked away, leaning against the kitchen counter and breathing hard. "Fuck! Fuck this!" he said, slamming the flat of his hand against a cabinet, the noise very loud and somehow misplaced in the otherwise serene atmosphere of the room. 

Naboo, to his credit, didn't look half as disturbed by this scene as either Julian or Noel did. "I can't be your brother," he said, picking up his tea again. "We look nothing alike. Plus, I'm from another planet." 

"He knows that," Julian said quickly, taking Noel's empty seat on the sofa. "But as you can see, he's gone wrong --"

"-- Fuck you, Julian!" Noel threw in, his back still turned as he braced himself against the counter.

Julian gritted his teeth and forced himself to continue. "He's gone wrong, like I said. And so have I."

Naboo pursed his lips very slightly. "You think I'm your brother, too? Because that's even less likely. I'm a swift and silent puma to your awkward Russian bear." 

Still facing the cabinet he had so recently assaulted, Noel made a strained noise. Julian wasn't surprised. It was Noel who had always compared Mike to a puma.

"No, no... not that." Julian fiddled with the collar of his jacket. "I'm not Howard, all right? And he's not Vince. I know we look like them, but we're actually different people."

Naboo was silent for a long moment, managing to look at Julian while seeming as if he actually wasn't. "No," he finally said. "You're Howard." 

Julian's hands unconsciously drifted up to his face at these words, his fingers rubbing at his temples. He didn't know how to respond to Naboo's accusation, and it almost seemed absurd to insist otherwise, at this point. He thought of the wizard behind the curtain. He thought of how the wizard, in the end, was just a man, weak-kneed and lined with age, if not wisdom. Someone just as likely to belch, fart, and act a right tit at a funeral. But everyone had believed in the light and magic he had projected from the safety of his hiding place, in the voice that filled the air with the authority of a sonic boom. Who was to say that believing wasn't the same as being? Give a lion a trinket-like medal, and suddenly he's brave. Give the tin-man a plastic heart and listen to it beat like a little soldier.

Noel finally turned around. "And what about me?" 

Naboo gave Noel brief appraisal, eyeing his cowboy hat and fuchsia tee. "You're _definitely_ Vince. Bit moodier than usual."

"But... no," Noel said, his voice small now, more helpless than angry. 

"Waking me up first thing in the morning expecting me to sort out your troubles isn't the best way to convince me you're not you," Naboo said. 

It was a maddeningly good point. One that sent Julian grasping into the furthest reaches of his brains for a new approach to this situation. Telling the truth was getting them nowhere. Well then, how about a stretch of the truth? This world was, after all, built upon fictions -- a tenuous foundation that seemed as solid as glitter. 

"Look, Naboo, you're a shaman," Julian began, rather carefully. "Do you believe in things like pluralistic universes? Or traveling through different dimensions?"

Naboo shrugged. "Depends." 

"Okay." Julian leaned forward, encouraged. "You're right, we _are_ Howard and Vince --"

"Wot!?"

Julian raised a hand, quieting Noel down. "But we're a version of Howard and Vince that exists in a universe very different from this one."

"Go on," Naboo said, cocking his head to the side ever so slightly.

"In our universe, we don't live as zookeepers. We're more like entertainers."

Naboo smirked. "I've seen your idea of entertaining. Dressing up like a paedo and slapping a bass, then waking up in a puddle of your own sick."

"Yes, well," Julian faked an unconvincing laugh. "In our universe, we're _respected_ entertainers. Well, sort of. Anyway, we're not zookeepers, all right?" 

"You're not very good zookeepers in this universe, either."

Noel stepped forward. "So you believe we're from another universe?"

Naboo studied them in that unnervingly subtle way he had. "I believe you believe you're from another universe."

"Yeah, but do you _really_ believe we believe we're from another universe?" Noel asked, setting himself down on the arm of the sofa. 

"I suppose." The shaman was beginning to look bored. 

"Well? Are you going to help us, then?" Julian demanded.

"Help you to what?" Naboo was now sending longing glances in the direction of his hookah. 

"To get back to our universe," Julian said, struggling for patience.

"I don't know. Have you got an amulet or something I can use?"

Noel sighed. "Ju, this is useless. Let's go back to the hut and think of something else." 

"What else is there?" Julian snapped. Then he addressed Naboo directly. "Look, you turbaned twat. If you can't cook up a spell or blow some dust or do _something_ of use, then what good are you?"

Noel gave Julian's shoulder a rough shove, wrenching it good in the process. "Don't talk to him like that!"

"It's fine," Naboo said, calm. Then he locked eyes with Noel. "I'm really not your brother, you know." 

Noel paused in his grappling with Julian's shoulder. "Then... who are you?" 

"I'm the Shaman."

There was a very long silence then, and the air seemed to grow thicker, somehow, as if it were being opposed and was now on the verge of shuddering apart. Julian let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding, and heard Noel do the same. Noel's hand on his shoulder had a light touch now, the thumb tracing thoughtful circles against the worn seam of his sleeve.

"Right. Noel, let's go." Julian shook his head, as if to clear it, then rose to his feet. Noel did as he was told, turning to give Naboo one last glance, then shuffling to the door and to Julian's side at the kiosk door. "We did it wrong," Julian said to him, just under his breath.

"I know," Noel whispered. 

Because as tenuous as the foundation was, as likely as it was to blow apart like a wayward puff of glitter, the Zooniverse had its own special order and logic. And it was an order _they_ had invented. Howard and Vince rarely went to the shaman first, they only ever went where the script took them -- but Noel and Julian, so used to treading their own path, so used to improvising, had gone against that order and had hit a small, turbaned shaman head-on. Now there was nothing left to do but back-track.

Naboo watched their back-tracking, retreating backs with mild interest. Then he drained his cup of tea and glanced casually at the dregs left in the bottom.

_Howard and Vince are in danger._

Naboo lifted his eyebrows. Well, wasn't that interesting. 

Then he yawned and reached for his hookah.

***

_Vince brushed his lips against yet another warm, downy cheek, getting a nose full of hair that was scented with cigarette smoke and lemony shampoo. He felt hands brush against the small of his back and his shoulders, as if seeking to stake a claim on the parts of his body he might not mind sharing. A nervous giggle sounded near his ear. a strange, single note that tickled and set the hairs on the back of his neck at attention._ "Thanks so much," _the giggler said, and Vince jerked his head up, studying a flushed Howard with slightly narrowed eyes._

_The giggler had collected her kiss from Vince and flitted over to Howard like flower-hopping bumblebee, calling his name and throwing her arms around Howard for a stiff, awkward hug. Stiff and awkward on Howard's end, that is, who looked as if he were being put upon by some strange new species of squirrel -- something that looked fun to pet but might be crawling with god knows what kind of disease. The hug went on and on, and as he endured it, Howard seemed to lose some of his flush. A small smile inched across his face, and he lifted a hand and gave the giggler's lemony-scented hair an affectionate pat. This prompted a visible shudder of delight from the giggler, which in turn prompted a disconcerted frown from Vince._

_This wasn't how things were supposed to go._

***

Vince had tried at least ten doors by now, and every last one of them was locked. "Private Padlocks, Private Padlocks..." he muttered, then called out over his shoulder to Howard. "They're all locked over here!" He heard Howard sigh in frustration from his end of the hallway, and took a stab at another doorknob, only to have it rattle uselessly in his hand. Rubbing his chin in concentration, Vince noticed that a brass number, 404, was posted on the door, and that the one directly adjacent read 405. Chasing an inkling of an idea, he dipped into his pockets and pulled out a key ring. The fob on it read 414. He studied it, not entirely sure of its significance, and looked up only when he heard a quiet _ding_ behind him.

It was the lift opening up. A maid came out from it, pushing a trolley stacked with white linens and bottles of disinfectant. She gave Vince a quick glance, then dutifully averted her eyes, pushing the rattling trolley past him. 

Vince hurried over to Howard's side. "See her?" he asked, pointing at the retreating maid. "And then there's this." He held up the key. "Reckon this is a hotel?"

Howard looked up and down the hallway, his eyes passing over the identical doors with their brass numbers. "Of course," he breathed. "Of course it's a hotel!" 

"I figured it out," Vince said smugly, twirling the key ring around his index finger.

"Congratulations on figuring out the obvious, little man." Howard snatched the keys from Vince's finger and shoved them into his own pocket, stalking towards the lift. 

"Well, _you_ didn't." 

"Do you mind?" Howard pushed the 'down' button on the lift. "I was giving you a chance to use you atrophied puzzle-solving faculties."

Vince laughed. "Right. 'What building are we inside today, kiddies? Is it a school? A Tescos? Ah, but no! It's a hotel. Free smarties for all!" 

Howard pointed at Vince in warning. "I'm not giving you any smarties, smarty."

Vince was still smirking when the lift opened. Internally, however, a very _very_ secret part of him thought it odd that they had spent fifteen minutes in a hotel hallway without realising it. He'd been in millions of hotels before, after all. All around the world, no less! But try as he might, he couldn't remember the details of any of them. It was more like someone had _told_ him he'd been inside millions of hotels, and that he'd never set foot in one in all his life. 

In the end, though, Vince wasn't too worried about it. He'd never set foot in these purple boots before, either, but they still fit like a dream. Plus the lift was completely mirrored on the inside, and like a magnet he drew close to the surface of one and tousled his already perfectly tousled hair, flicking invisible lint from his shoulders. He could see Howard watching him over his shoulder and pulled an exaggerated kissy-face in response, cheeks sucked in like a supermodel's. 

"Yeah, yeah," Howard grumbled as the doors opened. "Come on now, peachy puss."

The hotel lobby was quiet but for the patter of hard-soled shoes on the parquet floor, all of them belonging to the hotel staff. " Vince's own boyish gait drew their passing glances, while Howard's brooding shuffle sent their eyes hurrying back to the tasks set out before them. Looking through the heavy, leaded glass of the front doors, Vince paused rather than bustling though thoughtlessly, as was his usual style. Outside, the street was dominated by double-sized busses and mini-cabs -- more vehicles than Vince had ever seen in one place at one time. An older woman's teacup poodle paused on its lead to delicately defecate on a strip of grass and Vince blanched at the sight, making a mental note to steer clear of its target. "Ready?" he asked. 

"Howard Moon is always at the ready," Howard said lightly, but he was peering through the glass just as intently as Vince. 

They pushed through the door together, and Vince reeled back at once as sunshine hit him full in the face. The sky was enormous, studded with a patchwork of clouds that towered upwards, into the ether. "Lord," he murmured, wishing he had a pair of sunglasses on him. Or a shady cowboy hat, at the very least. A bus whizzed by, the sign on the side advertising _LONDON'S NUMBER ONE..._ then turning a corner before he could finish reading. London, then. A monochromatic and untidy assemblage of brick and stone that didn't at all jibe with his noir-ish and organised personal vision of the place.

"So," Howard said, wincing a bit in the daylight. "Where are we going?" 

" _You_ said we were going away." 

"We are. It's your job to narrow things down. To zero in on a specific destination."

"My job? Why is that my job?"

"Because that's how it works," Howard said, as if all should be obvious. "I get us going. I'm the instigator, the motivator. You're the one who wants to 'hit the shops'." 

"And you're volunteering to hit the shops with me?" Vince smiled, though it was laced with scepticism. "Don't you want to run off on your own, have a sit down in some dreary jazz club with all the other cardigan-wearing nonces?" 

Howard paused. "Yesss," he said, slowly. "If I knew where one was." 

"I see." Vince tipped back on his heels. "You don't know crap about London, so you're tagging along with me like a grumpy saint bernard."

"I do too know crap about London! I know all about crap. I lived here, you tit. _With you_." 

"Hey, where do you suppose the old flat is from here?" Vince looked up and down the street, recognising absolutely nothing. 

"Dunno. Round the corner, maybe?"

"Hmm. Maybe. Can't be far, anyway. Let's have a look." 

They took off to the right, their steps as uncertain as those of elderly American tourists. A man in a track suit bumped into them, throwing a dirty look over his shoulder. A fly buzzed in circles around their heads, as persistent as the confusion they were both trying desperately to hide. _Oi!_ someone yelled, and Vince jumped, unconsciously latching on to Howard's belt. 

"Wait!" the voice came again, and Vince turned around to see six or so bedraggled individuals clambering out from a bus shelter, looking quite as if they'd all spent the night there. "Noel! Julian!" A girl with bright purple streaks in her fringe was leading the pack, her eye make-up smeary. "Hi," she said, seeming rather breathless as she and her friends caught up to Vince and Howard. "Sorry to spring out like that... we were just..." she paused, giggling in a sheepish way. "We waited for you to come back to the club but you never showed. And I... well, we were wondering if you would sign a few things?" 

"Autographs?" Vince said, blinking in astonishment. 

"Yeah. If you don't mind?" 

A smile broke out over Vince's features -- fast, as if a switch had been thrown. He was finally on familiar territory. "Course I don't mind!" he chirped, literally _feeling_ Howard trying to shrink into the background as he did so. "Got a biro on you?"

The girl nodded, and the entire group began to rummage through their bags and pockets, fetching out biros and scraps of paper, speaking in excited undertones amongst one another. "Here," the girl with the purple fringe offered Vince a thick marker and a pub napkin. 

Vince addressed Howard, who was staring at the ground with his hands shoved in his pockets, and made a swiveling motion with his finger. "Turn round, I need a writing surface." Howard gave Vince a poisonous look but pivoted around and allowed Vince to slap the pup napkin against his back. The crowd tittered at this, and Vince wrote out, in painstakingly neat letters, _To the lovely ladie with the purple fringe. - Vince Noir xxx_. He then passed the napkin back to the girl with a flourish, who stared at it with a uncertain sort of smile on her face.

"Oh! You signed it as Vince!" She finally said, then giggled as if this were a very clever and unexpected move on Vince's part.

"'Course!" Vince dipped forward and kissed the girl's cheek. Her hair smelled of faintly cigarette smoke and lemony shampoo. "Anyone else?" he offered, opening his arms wide to the small group. A boy stepped forward, probably still deep in teenage-hood, if the unfortunate acne on his chin was any indication. His hair stood up in stiff peaks and he wore a white jumpsuit with odd suspenders and a polo-studded cod-piece. "Hey! I used to have an outfit like that," Vince said, pointing. "Did you join up with Kraftwerk Orange?"

The boy looked stunned, then burst out laughing. "Yeah. I'm their new frontman. A real shape-puller."

"Oh." Vince drew back slightly, watching as the boy did a poor imitation of shape-pulling, looking as if he were aiming for the front grill of a lorry but ending up more like a rotisserie, instead. "Well, watch out for Neon and Ultra," he finally said. "They'll not hesitate to cut a bitch." 

Now the whole group laughed, nudging each other in disbelief and amusement. 

"Just sign my suit," the boy suggested, pivoting around. Vince hesitated -- marking up perfectly good clothing wasn't his style -- then finally scrawled _To the so-called shape-puller, watch out for those crazie birds -- Vince Noir xxx_. Then he capped the marker and looked up expectantly at the others, noticing that purple fringe was now holding out her pub napkin to Howard, who was staring at it as if he wasn't sure whether he should wipe his nose on it, or what.

"Please?" she said, smiling sweetly. 

"Wh -- what?" Howard stammered, looking wildly at Vince for direction. 

Vince furrowed his brow, equally or perhaps even more confused than Howard himself. "I think she wants you to sign it," he finally said, rather flatly. 

"Oh." Howard gingerly took the napkin from the girl's hand and she pivoted around, offering up her back. Someone handed Howard a biro, and he held it over the napkin with a shaking hand, then finally wrote _Howard T.J. Moon_. He bit the end of the biro, as if toiling over what to write next. _Listen to Jazz_ he wrote, finishing with a self-satisfied smile. 

"Wot? You don't give rubbish musical advice to your fans, you maniac," Vince tutted, having watched the whole exchange very closely. 

Purple fringe, however, seemed utterly pleased by what Howard had written. She chuckled with obvious mirth, then opened her arms, quite clearly expecting a hug. 

Vince turned away. He could see the rest of it in his head, though: Howard's initial hesitation, followed by the smile that would emerge along with long-sought validation when he felt the girl's sun-warmed arms come around him. All the merriment of this experience was fast dissolving into something far less pleasant for Vince, and he wondered, briefly, if he had always been dreading this moment. But he knew in his heart that he had not. Because he had never imagined that such a moment would happen, ever. "All right," he said moodily, pointing with his marker at a short girl in a green cowboy hat. "Want me to sign something?"

"Yes, please," the girl said, her voice quavering as she held out a slick, white book. Not only was she wearing a green cowboy hat, but her tee-shirt was of the same colour, printed with silver, zig-zaggy lightning motif that Vince found vaguely familiar. She wasn't smiling and laughing, like the others, but wore a very grave expression as she bobbed up to Vince's side. "I... I saw your gig eight times. Last night's was the best. I'm just sorry that it's all over now."

Vince was cheered immensely by these words. He looked over his shoulder at Howard. "Hear that? She liked our gig!" 

"She _did_?" Howard squeaked, pausing in mid-scrawl on the shoulder of the shape-puller's white jumpsuit. "What gig?" he mouthed at Vince.

Vince shrugged, then turned back to the girl. "What's your name, love?" He asked, taking the book from her hands. It was thin and over-sized, its cover scrawled with chaotic doodles, arcane as a child's scribblings. "Cool," he said approvingly. 

"The future Mrs. Fielding," the girl said, then giggled shrilly and clapped her hands over her mouth, rent sombre once more by her own unexpected outburst. 

"Mrs. Fielding, is it?" Vince opened the book, looking for a nice spot to leave his mark. The pages were crowded with drawings and photographs, all of them brightly coloured and appealing at once to Vince's aesthetic eye. He studied them casually, then felt a weird knot turn in his belly when he actually saw what the photographs were of. And it was far different than the knot of jealousy he'd felt worm around at the sight of Howard getting hugs from a groupie. "Hey!" He exclaimed, holding the book up and pointing. "That's me! And Howard, in his huge headphones." 

"Sign it," the girl suggested, and Vince saw for the first time that there was something hungry and wanting in her eyes. "To the future Mrs. Fielding, from Mr. Fielding," she added, licking her lips.

"Right," Vince said through his teeth. But he continued to flip through the book instead, the knot twisting tighter and tighter as images of Howard and himself went past, all of them blurring together until he couldn't distinguish between them. "Do you have something else I could sign?" he finally asked, his voice gone dry and sandy. 

"No. I want you to sign that," the girl said, touching his wrist. 

Howard came to Vince's side. "What's wrong, little man. Forget how to spell your own name?" he laughed at his joke, cheerful at having been asked to sign autographs for the first time in his life. But the laugh died in his throat when he saw what Vince was looking at: a full page spread featuring that green cockney nutjob who had, once upon a time, tried to feed them to a zoo of deranged, ill-behaved animals. "Vince," he said, very carefully. "I think we better be scootin'."

Vince looked at Howard through glazed vision. "I don't like this. I don't understand any of it."

Howard's hand came down on his shoulder, heavy and re-assuring despite the fact that his eyes were darting around in his sockets like pinballs, as they often did when he was nervous. "Just give her back her book, Vince, and we'll be on our way." 

Listlessly, with fingers that didn't seem to want to work right, Vince tried to hand the book back to the girl in the cowboy hat. She shook her head, pushing it back into his grasp. "You didn't sign it yet." 

"I have to go," Vince said meekly. 

"You have to sign it!" The girl said, pushing the book against Vince's chest. 

"I really should..."

"The tour's over, this is my last chance! And I've stayed out all night and my parents are gonna go spare. Noel, please!" she begged, the last word ending on a desperate sob.

"Don't call me that!" Vince said, clutching her book in his arms and scrambling around Howard to hide in the safety of his height. But the girl only followed, letting out a crazed shriek and jumping onto Vince's back. "Owwww, leggo, you flamin' bobcat!" The girl had her fingers in his hair and was tugging hard, as if intent on getting her souvenir at any price. It hurt dreadfully, and tears sprang at once into Vince's eyes in response to the ripping pressure.

"Leave him be!" Howard shouted, thwaping the girl's cowboy hat. Unfortunately, his blow go her in the back of the head, too, and she reeled away with a yelp, nearly falling down onto the pavement. Then she began cry: loud, infantile yowls that attracted the curious looks of passersby. Howard stared at his own hand in amazement, having never known it to be capable of such prowess. 

"Joanne!" The purple-fringe girl shouted, coming quickly to her sobbing friend's aid and drawing her into a protective embrace. "What the fuck is your problem?" she demanded, glaring at Howard through her matted, glittery eyelashes. 

" _My_ problem?" Howard countered. "My problem is that your friend pulled my mate's hair," he said, wrapping an arm around Vince. "No one touches this man's hair, madam. Not while Howard Moon is around."

The group took in these words with shocked silence, a few of them shuffling back warily, as if fearing that Howard might come at them with his fist as well.

"You're not Howard Moon, you're just a dick. And you're old, too," the jumpsuited boy finally offered, standing back with his silently shocked friends. 

"How dare you." Howard drew up to his full, noble height. "See if I ever sellotape a bassoon to my head for your enjoyment again."

"Howard, come on," Vince said, pulling at his elbow. "People are starting to stare. There's a mini-cab... let's go." 

"Good idea," Howard muttered, clutching at Vince as they both hurried towards the mini-cab sat idling in traffic. 

"Just you wait!" one of the girls shouted. "This will all be on the internet within hours!" 

"So's your Mum!" Howard yelled, making a rude gesture that ignited a flurry of obscenities from their former fans.

"Howard, get in!" Vince tugged Howard into the cab. 

"Where to?" The driver asked, speaking around a mouthful of panini.

"Um... " Vince tried to think. They'd been heading for their old flat, but the exact address -- like so many other things -- had escaped his memory. "Top Shop," he finally said. It was the first place that had popped into his mind. 

"Oxford Street?" 

"Yeah, whatever. Just go!" Howard demanded, pounding on the glass divider. "That was awful," he said to Vince, staring in wonderment at the hand that had delivered a blow to the girl in the cowboy hat. 

"I'll say," Vince said, staring hard out the window. "Seeing you giving out autographs... recommending _jazz_ , no less." 

"What's that you said?" Howard demanded, his lips pressing into a thin line.

Vince glowered quietly. "Nothing." 

"I save you from being hair-raped by a... a miniature, female version of you, and this is the thanks I get?"

"You think my hair can't take a raping?" Vince reached up and massaged his scalp. "Well, maybe it can't. So... thanks." 

"You're welcome." Howard flopped back into the seat, disgruntled. 

The next several minutes passed in silence. It was, in fact, the longest bit of silence that had ever fallen between them, and it budged in between them like a pink elephant, stinking up the place. Vince concentrated on the scenery as it flew by. Buildings and more buildings, none of them strung together in a way that made an ounce of sense. It slowly occurred to him that he was still holding the hair-rapist's book, that the slick pages were clutched between his fingers, creasing from the strength of his grip. 

Without really wanting to, he flipped the book open.

Beside him, he felt Howard shift, and he knew that his friend was looking, too. 

It was all so familiar it made his head go topsy-turvy. Drawing upon drawing, scribbled in what he could swear was his own hand. Charlie... Tommy Nooka... even that stupid green bloke with the thumb like an obscene cuke. Near the end of the book -- which was short, though not nearly short enough -- he opened up to a full-page colour photograph of a man-thing with garishly red lips and a very organic-looking head of hair. Howard made a small noise in the back of his throat and muttered something like "Old Gregg." Vince turned to the last page, where a polaroid snapshot was featured, scrawled with their names: _Vince & Howard_. 

"Have you ever seen any of this before?" He finally asked. 

"I saw it when all of it happened," Howard said stiffly. "Never saw photos and art of it before. Not sure I want to know what sort of deranged person would put it all together into a book."

"That girl in the cowboy hat made it, I guess," Vince said, tucking the book under his arm. It was the only sensible explanation. 

"Yeah, but how'd she _know_ about that stuff? There's even a photo of us in those ridiculous nana outfits we wore when Nanatoo was on the loose." 

"My outfit wasn't ridiculous! It was saucy nana brilliance. Wonder what happened to it..." 

"Yeah?" Howard snorted in derision. "I wonder what happened to a lot of things." 

Vince turned, studying Howard's profile. It was screwed up in concentration, his brows knitted together in that way that gave him the look of someone who didn't smile nearly enough by half. "What sort of things?" 

"Yesterday! What happened to yesterday. I can't remember anything specific about it, can you?" 

Vince opened his mouth to answer, then thought better of it. What good would it do to say _Yesterday we were zookeepers... or maybe we were in a band... and I think we might have been working in a shop with Naboo... but wait, maybe we were up in the tundra, looking for a snow leopard. Or was it a precious stone big as a school-boy's head?_ He could think of oodles of things that had happened yesterday. He just didn't know when yesterday was. 

"Does it really matter?" he asked, lightly as he could manage. "It's not yesterday, it's today. And today we're going to Top Shop."

Howard gave him an incredulous look. "Is that all you can say?" 

_No, but yes. It's all I can say until I know how to say what I mean to say._

There was a sigh. It was hard to say who it came from. 

"Never mind," Howard said, hasty as you please. "Top Shop. That ought to be good, eh?" 

"Oh, it'll be genius." Vince smiled at once. "I'm going to stock up on accessories. Hats, belts, wrist-cuffs. Definitely hats. I need something to hide the damage that that crazy wench did to my hair."

"Aw, did she hurt your hairs?" Howard said in mock-concern. "Are you going into follicle shock?" He reached up and brought his hand near the top of Vince's hair, not quite touching it, but holding it close as if it were a fire that gave off a special kind of warmth. 

"Utter shock. I'm just lucky she didn't go for the short hairs." 

Howard grinned. "You haven't got any." 

"That's cos you used them all in your manky pubic soup."

"Hey, don't mock the soup. It's a delicacy in regions near 90 degree latitude." 

From where he listened in the front seat, the driver put the remains of his panini aside and turned the radio up, drowning them out.

***

_He needs to be touched, sometimes._

 _It doesn't take much. Just letting him touch_ you _is enough to get him by. For a while. A barely-there splaying of fingers against your chest, and then the inevitable words:_ Isn't that right, Ju?

_Stay still. Don't pull away. This is what he needs._

_You don't need it, or so you tell yourself. You wonder, though. Would your mouth say anything at all if that hand didn't come against your chest, encouraging the vowels to rise up and show themselves? You speak when it matters. He speaks to keep the air company. Maybe he just wants your words to join his there once and a while._

_He needs to be touched now. His body language warns you to stay away: the moody strut of his hips, hands shielded in his pockets, the downward turn of his chin. What's the distance between you? Less than a metre, physically. But non-physically, even less than that. And that's why you never need to be touched yourself. Because you know that he's already there. Lurking in the coils of your mind, grabbing on to your thoughts before you even know that you've thought them._

__Isn't that right, Ju? __

_So why doesn't he know it, as well?_

***

Whatever happened next, Noel hoped to fuck that Julian wouldn't touch him. He'd already looked into his brother's face today, only to see nothing he knew reflected there -- just his own eyes, bigger than a bush baby's as they swam in the inky fathoms of Mike's pupils. To have Julian act out in a way that wasn't entirely familiar to Noel now would be the worst possible thing. A stranger for a brother, a stranger for a friend.

He pretended to look through the window into Mr. Roger's enclosure, idly rubbing at a smear on the glass with the cuff of his sleeve, realising that he was waiting for Julian to speak. It wasn't entirely fair, was it? To put the burden of silence on his friends shoulders when it was usually he who had a string of words crowding on his tongue, all of them fighting to be the first born.

Noel cleared his throat. "Wow. He really is one ancient snake," he finally said, going for the obvious. They'd decided to go to the Reptile House after leaving Naboo's kiosk, figuring that finding the chameleon boudoir was the proper course of action, as dictated by Bob Fossil's rude orders earlier than morning. The chameleon boudoir wouldn't lead them back home, Noel supposed, but perhaps it would lead them through whatever string of events the Zooniverse had in store for them. And in following that tangled string, maybe they would find their way out of here. That was the theory, anyway. It wasn't a very sound one, but neither of them had much else on at the moment. 

"Yeah," Julian offered. "Toothless, too."

The snake was a limp, near-lifeless thing, snoozing in his slimy water bowl, his saggy mouth flapping with gentle snores. Noel wondered at which point a cobra stopped searching out a narrow escape from his glass cage and simply collapsed into the water for a nap. He thought he heard somewhere that lions never stopped pacing in their cages, not even after years of having lived away from their savannah. Or maybe that was sharks. Sharks never stopped swimming, did they? 

"Poor sod," Noel said, tracing a mindless pattern on the glass with his index finger. "No teeth. Dirty water. He'd be better off anywhere but here." 

"He seems content enough," Julian said from the far end of the reptile house. Bathed in the gloucous, watery-blue light, he regarded an empty turtle aquarium. 

"He doesn't know any better." Noel stood upright, compelled to catch up with Julian. Not wanting to be left alone even while they breathed the same air. The reptile house itself was sparsely populated, the cages crawling with more crickets than there were lizards and toads to munch them down. Off to the side of where Julian stood, though, there was a raggedy curtain that looked as if it might have once been a more dignified plush velvet. "What d'ya suppose is through there?" Noel asked, pointing.

"I don't suppose," Julian said, rubbing at his chin. "I'd rather leave it alone." 

"Oh, come on. Why?"

"Because. There could be anything behind there. Bad --" he cut off abruptly, making a pained face.

"Ju ju?" Noel offered. 

"Yeah."

"I don't think so. This place can't even offer up a cobra with real teeth. Can't even be bothered to outfit him with dentures." 

Julian looked Noel up and down with mild bafflement, as if wondering how he'd ever gotten saddled with such an irrational, ill-behaved creature. It was a look Noel had gotten used to. Sometimes it brought him a perverse pleasure. Sometimes, it brought him the even more perverse hope that Julian would stop him, scold him. Grab on to the scruff of his neck and not let go.

"Fine," Julian said, too weary to put up a fight this time. "Do what you like. You will anyway." 

_Think you'd have learnt it by now,_ Noel thought, pushing through the curtain without bothering to see if Julian would follow. 

The room he entered was cool, dimly lit in a pinkish-red glow that brought European brothels to mind. More curtains were hung over the walls, slightly less tattered than the one he'd just walked through, and the ceiling and floors were printed with whimsical, rococo-styled swirls and curls. An opulent chaise lounge was sat in the middle of the room, studded with silken cushions that, despite looking as if they'd seen better days, were still reasonably plump. Noel took a step into the room and heard something skitter across the floor like light gravel. He squinted, trying to see what it was, and one of the rococo swirls on the floor _moved_ , twitching like a restless tail. Then it came to life and ran over the toe of Noel's boot. Predictably, he let out a cry of distress.

"It's a chameleon," Julian said calmly, having followed Noel through the curtain after all. "They're everywhere." 

"They are?" Noel looked around wildly, but saw nothing. 

_Of course we are!._

"And look at that," Julian said, pointing out something that looked like a pile of black rice. "Guano, just like Fossil said."

"Bat's shit?" Noel made a face. 

_Do sweep that up, would you dear?_

Noel inched closer to Julian. It was the second time he'd thought he'd heard someone else talking to him, and the way the voice echoed in his mind rather than his ears was giving him a thorough case of the creeps. 

"It's harmless," Julian said, mistaking Noel's distress for pure revulsion. "See if you can find a broom or a mop around here. Taking care of the bats in the chameleon boudoir was what Fossil asked of us, so we might as well do it."

Noel grumbled internally. It was _his_ idea to search out the chameleon boudoir in the first place. Julian was the one who'd said he wasn't going to do what the "deranged American" asked of him, yet now he was snapping around orders as if it was his plan they were following through on. Noel continued to think ungrateful thoughts as he hunted around the corners of the boudoir, refusing to recognise the more rational voice inside him as it timidly suggested that Julian was just trying to cope, same as he was. Near the back of the room he found some aprons hung on pegs, and a mop, broom, and bucket propped against a rusty sink. He turned the water on full force, steam billowing, and, after a moment's consideration, pulled an apron on over his zooniform. No use getting smeared up with guano. 

"Here." He hauled the bucket over and plopped it down near Julian's feet so that hot water sloshed all over his sensible shoes. "You mop, I'll sweep," he said brusquely, guiding the broom around the floor hap-hazardly. 

_Watch yourself. That's my tail you're brutalising._

Noel dropped the broom. 

"Come on, Noel," Julian complained. "There's still more guano over here. And there... and there."

"Sorry!" Noel hastily picked up the broom. "I'm not givin' up or nothing. This place just has me a bit jumpy." 

"Why's that?" Julian asked, his tone suddenly thoughtful as he wrung out the dripping mop. "I actually quite like it. I remember going to the Temple Newsam House about four years ago and looking at their collection of Chippendale furniture... you know how it's carved with all those shell-like swirls? Made me think of the way chameleons' tails curl, and I thought if the chameleon boudior were real, it'd be decorated in some wild swirling design that the lizards could just sort of... disappear into."

There was a wistful note to Julian's words that caused Noel to pause in his sweeping, wondering what sort of design Julian himself dreamed of disappearing into. "Well, I always thought the room would be all swirly too," he finally said. "'Cept I was looking at a display of those giant lollies at the time, the kind that coil round and round like a psychedelic nautilus."

"Sweets. Your primary inspiration in life."

"Pretty much. Hey, you reckon anyone other than hippies keep chameleons as pets?"

_Hippies! Of all the nerve..._

"None of the hippies I know do. They all have rottweilers. Rottweilers with names like China Cat Sunflower and Aoxomoxoa." 

_Vince, tell the generic one that American Beauty is the best album by the Dead_.

"Ju, I think I'd better have a sit down," Noel said shakily, dropping himself onto the chaise lounge and letting the broom slide from his grip. Being called "Vince" by the voice was enough to finally drive home the fact that he wasn't imagining things.

Julian stopped working and leaned against the mop. "Why? We're almost done." 

"I don't feel right." 

_What's wrong, Vince?_

With those words, Noel looked down and saw that the uncomfortable cushion he was leaning his arm on was in fact a chameleon, purple and bejewelled to match the other satiny cushions that were scattered about the chaise. "What do you want?" he asked, pulling away in alarm. 

"A little help might be nice." Julian sloshed the mop around noisely, frowning in concentration. 

_You do look a little peaked._ The chameleon darted up Noel's arm and put its scaly claw against his forehead. _No fever, though._

Noel went very still, his heartbeat filling his ears as the chameleon looked him over, its eyes rotating around in opposing directions. Julian came closer to the chaise, dragging the mop behind him. "Why is there a cushion sitting on your shoulder?"

_I'm not a cushion!_

"It's not a cushion," Noel said, his voice squeaking. "It's a chameleon." As if to prove this, the chameleon changed colours, transforming from a silky purple to a bright, kelly green that matched Noel's zooniform jacket, complete with a trio of badges on its knobby back.

"Oh. Well, why is there a chameleon on your shoulder? And is it... dressed like you?" 

"We're having a chat."

Julian sighed. "Why do you insist on muckin' around, eh? Yeah, I know, Vince can talk to animals. Very charming to pretend you can do the same and all, but I'd like to finish up here, if you don't mind." 

Noel shifted uneasily, feeling the chameleon coil its tail around his ear -- almost affectionately, it seemed. "I'm not pretending. I've been hearing them ever since we came in here, all right?" 

"Stop it."

"Stop what?!"

"Stop... making stuff up!" 

"I'm not!" Noel retorted, balling up his fists in frustration. "Look, I'll prove it to you. I'll turn around and you do something behind my back, right? And this here chameleon... "

 _Jenny_ , the lizard supplied.

"Right. Jenny will watch and tell me what you're doing." 

"Jenny?" Julian shook his head in something that looked painfully like disgust. "Are you retarded?" 

"Come on! Humour me."

"As Mowgli wishes," Julian said, putting the mop aside and crossing his arms over his chest. 

Noel shifted around on the chaise until his back was to Julian. "Okay now, do something." He waited, hearing Julian shuffle around behind him.

_He's got his middle finger up._

Noel smiled a bit. "Jenny says you're giving me the fuck-off salute."

"I reckon you could have guessed that one. Doesn't prove a thing." 

"So do something else," Noel suggested, beginning to enjoy himself a little. It wasn't a bad gig, being able to talk to animals, and he thought Jenny might fancy him a bit, caressing his ear with her tail like that. Clearly, Vince was quite the big hit with the animals -- just as Noel had always imagined. 

_He's kissing his hand. Ew, I don't like that._

Noel let out a gruff laugh. "You're snogging you hand, says Jenny. Better hope there's no guano on it."

There was a resounding silence in which Noel basked, fully aware that Julian had no choice to accept his word as gospel. He turned around, facing his friend again, and sure enough, Julian had gone red and stormy. 

"That's... not fair!" he burst out.

Noel grinned. "What's not fair? What are you on about?" 

"You can talk to animals like Vince! What can I do? Play the court jester to your Jungle Prince?" Julian paced around in a broody circle. "Stupid, useless Howard."

"Aw, come on. Howard's not useless. He's a multi-instrumentalist, innee?" 

"He's not," Julian said, slapping a hand against his chest. " _I'm_ more of a multi-instrumentalist than he is. Howard's just a massive embarrassment of a man."

"He's not either," Noel said calmly, reaching up to give Jenny a stroke. "Vince loves Howard just the way he is." 

Julian stopped in mid-pace, giving Noel a strange look. "What's that mean? Vince torments Howard for being the way he is. That's not love."

Noel rolled his eyes. "We've talked about this before, Ju."

"When we were pissed, you mean." 

"What do you want me to do? It's not my fault that I made Vince an exercise in wish-fulfillment and you made Howard all about self-deprecation."

Julian's features narrowed as he studied Noel with an intensity that made him want to squirm. "I think you're enjoying being Vince. On purpose." 

Noel sighed. "I think you're enjoying being Howard! Brooding about and complaining. On _purpose_ ," he added, pointedly.

Julian made a growling sound of frustration and fetched up the mop again, looking as if he'd like to break it over Noel's thick head. Instead, he drew back his arm and threw it like a javelin at the nearest wall. It hit the curtains with a clatter -- _Oh no,_ Jenny sighed -- and a flurry of dark, winged things flew from the material, noiseless but for an obscene leathery sound that sent a shudder down Noel's spine. 

"Fucking... bats!" Julian yelled, running for the shelter of the chaise. Noel grabbed on to him at once, throwing his free arm over his head protectively, glad he was wearing a hat. The creatures swooped around them just the same, as if intent on nestling into their hair, and Julian flailed his arms about, warding them off. 

_Those bats are nothing but trouble. They've invaded our lovely boudoir and one of them tried to suck poor Jeremy's blood out this morning._ Jenny said, digging her claws into Noel's arms almost painfully.

"They suck blood?" Noel exclaimed in horror, budging up closer to Julian. 

"They do!?" Julian started waving a cushion around. 

_Just hold still! You're upsetting them._

"Stop it, Ju." Noel latched on to Julian's hand and pulled it into his lap, holding it still. They winced and curled into each other, marrying their bodies into a protective ball, knees and shoulders bumped together as they blew hot, nervous breath into each others faces. It occured to Noel that the sensible thing to do would be to simply run out of the bat-infested boudoir, but he didn't bother to point this out. Cool wings grazed the back of his neck and he wondered, briefly, why the bats didn't seem to have anything to say to him. Not that he was really feeling generous about listening at the moment. 

"Noel..." Julian's hand squeezed at the top of his hip, bunching denim between his fingers. 

"Yeah?" Noel ducked away from the sound of nearby flapping, the side of his forehead cracking against Julian's and making him wince. Maybe it was the brief flare of pain that made his revulsion over the bats fade away. Maybe it was something else. 

Julian chuckled nervously, and Noel felt the vibration of it run head to toe through his body. 

"We're idiots," he said. "We never wrote a song about how to calm down a rabid flock of bats."

***


	3. part three

 

 

  
**A Journey Through Time and Space**

***

part three

_It was strange, how some things were there when he needed them, and other things weren't._

_Where was Vince, for example, when he'd poked his bulbous head into that box, then slid the length of his body down the chute into this dark oubliette that smelled sourly of stewed cabbage? He'd almost expected a hand to come round his ankle and haul him back up and into the light, but it didn't happen like that. He'd landed an untidy heap on the hard ground, his eyes squinting into the dark and finding nothing but more of it. Heaps of dark, pressing in on him like a crow bar with legs._

_But there was a lighter in his pocket, a tin oblong pressing into his right buttock despite the fact that he didn't smoke. A light in the dark, just when he needed it. He fiddled with it uncertainly, like a forbidden child, then finally snapped his thumb the right way and brought an orange flame leaping to life._

_And there, in the circle of it, Vince's face. That familiar, jack-knifing grin that was just another sort of light._

 

 

***

The partition Howard was leaning against gave an ominous creak yet again, and he ducked his head to clear the range of all those penetrating eyes that might be aimed in his direction. No curious looks were discharged, which was re-assuring, in a way. Everyone was too busy rummaging through racks of jangly earrings and bracelets, enough to bauble and bedeck any self-respecting band of gypsies, as well as waving around polka-dotted scarves like bad stage magicians. This was Top Shop, and people were here to do some top shopping. They couldn't be bothered with one man who was budged up uncomfortably near the front windows, as if hoping they would render him as transparent as the glass itself.

Of course, it didn't hurt that he was in disguise. The wig was styled in the white, wayward style of a mad professor, like a dandelion gone to full seed, and though Howard knew he looked ridiculous, it seemed to be netting him fewer stares than he had endured without it.

The wigs had been Vince's accidental idea. Once the mini-cab had dropped them on Oxford street, they still had to walk a block and cross over. In the duration of that short walk, Howard had pushed past more people than he had ever encountered in his life, all of them chatting on mobiles, loaded down with parcels and sporting miniscule headphones that surely didn't do their rubbish music justice. Though some had been oblivious, navigating in the bubble of their own private world, quite a few had caught his eye, and others had stared at him intently, as if they knew him from somewhere. One had even latched on to his arm, crying out that name that had nothing to do with him: _Julian Barratt?_

Vince had endured even more of the same, chirping out a chorus of "No... No. I'm not him" to all those who approached him with a shy smile and a _don't I know you from...?_ A few seemed to tremble at the sight of Vince. It was an odd thing to see: the off-and-on blinking of the eyes, like a circuit with a short, and the quaking hands that wavered in the space that surrounded Vince, as if they might drawn the cool surface of his skin from thin air. Howard had seen Vince use his looks and presence to get what he wanted before -- or, rather, to _try_ to get what he wanted. With the exception of the animals and lesser-homo sapiens who lived to please him, Vince wasn't as legendary in reality as he was in his own head. Or so Howard often told himself as means of reassurance.

But he didn't know how to re-assure away these people, with their wide and wanting eyes.

Just when Howard thought the wall of eyes would close in on them, Vince herded him into the nearest shop. Not Top Shop, but a less splendid affair that seemed to specialise in platform boots made out of slick, wet-looking vinyl and mini-skirts that couldn't properly cover a racing hound's sleek arse, let alone one belonging to a human girl. They'd ran for the dressing room cubicles, cowering behind a curtain while Vince frequently touched his hair, as if checking to make sure it was all still there. At first, Howard had mistaken Vince's shaking for fear, but the slightly breathy laugh he gave indicated that he was at least partially excited by all the hullabaloo, and Howard was forced to reel in the reach of his ready-to-comfort hand. Howard couldn't say he was surprised by the laugh -- Vince had probably spent most of his life dreaming of the day when he had to hide in a dressing room cubicle to avoid an onslaught of eager fans. That the fans weren't exactly for him probably didn't matter.

The shop girl had demanded to know what they were doing, then got a close look at them and abruptly shifted gears, asking if she could help them in any way at all. Vince explained that they were hiding, and she clucked in sympathy and disappeared into a back room. When she emerged, she was laden down with a box that contained wigs, chipped mannequin arms, squashed hats and a few pairs of sunglasses. They helped themselves, Howard choosing the most masculine model while Vince opted for a long, Lady Godiva-styled blond wig that made him look like a reject from an 80s metal vomit band. He actually preened in the mirror as he adjusted the monstrosity on his head, as if not entirely disappointed by the result.

Only then, armed with wigs and sunglasses, did they make it safely to Top Shop. People still stared, but they were stares of curiosity and bafflement rather than stares of awe and recognition. Howard wasn't bothered; he was sort of used to the former.

 _But they wanted my autograph.... MINE!_ he thought fiercely, unable to stop a smile from seizing up his newly-disguised features. Like Vince, he seemed to have momentarily forgotten that it was this "Julian" person they were after, and instead relished the memory of that biro in his grip -- and, admittedly, the memory of Vince's frankly astonished face upon seeing that biro so at home in Howard's hand. He hadn't had his hair raped, but he had been hugged. Gently, at that, by a girl who seemed to hold in her breath when she pressed in close -- not in revulsion, but in reverence. Howard knew he would remember everything about that moment -- especially her scent, which had been of cigarettes and citrus shampoo, plus something else he couldn't quite put his finger on... something familiar that made him long for home.

He just wished he could sort out where home was.

It wasn't Top Shop, that was for certain. While Vince had blithely disappeared into a forest of jewellery cases and hat-stands, Howard had grimaced at all the bright colours and synthetic materials, choosing to find refuge in a spot of flooring near the front, where a man and his son sat -- presumably in wait of some money-spending wife and mother -- man chatting avidly on mobile while the son monkied around with a toy telescope. Howard was grateful for the shield of his sunglasses, which masked his gaze as he watched the boy ladder the telescope open and stare at shoppers through the wrong end.

"Hello," the boy said, apparently able to see through sunglasses despite not knowing how to operate astronomy equipment.

"Uh, hi."

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting..." Howard shrugged. It wasn't a brilliant answer, but it more or less described his actions at the moment. "What are you doing?"

"Star-gazing."

"Yeah? I think you're looking through the wrong end."

"I _know_ that," the boy said, collapsing the telescope into itself and giving Howard a scrutinising look. "I'm just practising. There's a lunar eclipse tonight, but you need special glasses for that."

"Like these?" Howard held a finger to his sunglasses.

"No, special ones. It'll burn out your eyes, otherwise."

Howard smiled. As far as kids went, this one seemed pretty normal, though obviously woefully mis-informed about the differences between a solar and lunar eclipse. Most that he'd been around were usually crying for their Mums and dangling from trees after being thrown there by Bob Fossil. "Hey, mind if I have a go at that?" he asked, pointing at the telescope.

The boy passed it over, nodding. It wasn't entirely impressive equipment, made of nothing more than plastic, but Howard lifted his sunglasses and held it to his eye. A bright red something popped into his field of vision and he turned his head slightly, passing the larger-than-life shoppers over until his lens came upon a blond blur. It was Vince, his eyes wide open at something that had put a slightly maniacal grin on his face. The wig created a nimbus of gold fuzz around his sharp features, and Howard wondered what it was that had set him smiling like that. A studded wrist-cuff? A teenage girl with neon hair who was giving him the eye over a stack of discounted leg-warmers? Howard sighed, but Vince's grin didn't waver. He knew that he himself would be smiling exactly like that, if faced with a crate of rare Jazz LPs, and marvelled that both he and Vince could be made happy by such simple, shallow rubbish that happened to be such _different_ simple, shallow rubbish.

 _No, that's not right,_ he thought, frowning. _Jazz isn't shallow! Jazz matters. It's like a bouncing butterfly, just before a vicious, kamikaze wind tears off the wings and uses them to pick its breezy teeth._

"Oi!"

Howard jerked the telescope away from his eye and the sunglasses fell back onto his face. Very close to his right now was the somewhat disgruntled man who'd been chatting on his mobile only moments earlier.

"That belongs to my boy," the man said, pointing at the telescope.

"Right, of course." Howard hurriedly passed the toy back to the boy, who took it without comment.

"What do you want with a kiddie telescope?" the man asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow.

"What? No... I don't care for telescopes. Not... kiddie ones. Or any," Howard bumbled, feeling a drop of sweat trickle down his forehead.

The man's eyebrow shot higher, puffing up like an anxious caterpillar.

Howard was saved from something awful (or so he strongly suspected) when, like a knight's silver-shod horse, Vince click-clacked over in his high boots, unaware of or entirely immune to the tension of the scene he had stumbled upon.

"Hey Howard!" he said jovially, shoving a white paper bag against Howard's chest. "I got you some lunch. Raspberry bootlaces, coconut cubes -- couldn't find any Saturn zingers, though." He flipped his blond hair over his shoulder and smiled with faint content. "You munch those down, I'm going to pay for the stack of genius gloves and scarves I've built up at the counter."

"Right, thanks," Howard said weakly, watching his friend's bouncy retreat with an impending sense of doom.

"That your wife?" the man asked, and Howard was startled to hear that all the accusation had gone from the man's tone. Instead, he sounded cautiously relieved.

"Yeahhhh." The word was like the sound of air being squeezed from a tire. It seemed like the safest answer to provide.

"Nice round arse," the man remarked.

Howard lifted his sunglasses and tried to see what was nice about Vince's round rear view. "That is is," he offered, feeling ridiculous. "Like... spring fruit. A clefted, shiny plum or... peach. Any pitted fruit, really."

The man gave him a toothy grin. "Time for harvest, eh?"

Howard tried to smile back, the sunglasses still pushed up on top of his wig.

"Eh, ain't you that bloke from the channel 4 programme? What's it... the one about Barley." The man peered into Howard's now-revealed face, both of his fuzzy eyebrows now raised in delight.

"Barley?"

"Yeah, that rubbish one about the writer who hates idiots. You're him, aren't you? Dan Ashcroft."

"No," Howard said, pushing the sunglasses firmly over his eyes. "It's Moon. Howard Moon." He felt a tiny tug on his sleeve and looked down into the plaintive, freshly-scrubbed face of the man's son, who was still messing about with his telescope.

"Your wife looks more like the moon than you do," the boy said obscurely, inviting a stunned silence from Howard. He quickly shrugged it off and returned his attention to the boy's father.

"I'm a writer, yes. I write many things... poetry, lyrics, novels-in-progress. And it's true that I do _strongly dislike_ idiots. But my name's not Dan Ashcroft." He nodded firmly, hoping this would set the man straight.

"Yeah, I know." The man gave Howard a look that suggested he felt he was addressing a mental case. "I meant that you play him on telly."

"I don't play anyone on telly!" Howard clambered to his feet. "If I were going to act, it would be on stage. Hamlet. Possibly Macbeth."

"Who?" The man looked like he wanted to laugh.

Howard waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, go back to your mobile, jabberjaws." He left both them and the bag of sweets behind in search of Vince, faint anxiety gnawing at the depths of his chest. He'd long ago recognised that he had something of a forgettable face ( _it's mysterious_ , his mind substituted), given all the sundry occasions on which he'd had to argue with Graham over the subject of his identity, but he wasn't at all accustomed to being mistaken for other people -- particularly people who were well-known enough to give out autographs and play writers on the telly. It was a disquieting experience, and an annoying one, at that. Howard Moon should be famous for being Howard Moon! Or, if not famous, then generously appreciated by a small, cult-like faction who would pen him vaguely erotic letters on old-fashioned, scented stationary. And then there was the matter of that peculiar book that was full of snapshots from his and Vince's life. He'd gone along with Vince's dismissal of it back in the mini-cab, but now he thought they ought to have a bit of a sit-down and discuss just what sort of bad ju ju was happening to them.

Bad ju ju seemed to be the furthest thing from Vince's mind, as he bobbed along to the shop's dreadful keyboard music while standing at the counter in front of a fortress-like mound of clothing and accessories.

"What are you going to use to pay for all that?" Howard demanded, coming up behind him. They'd already had trouble coming up with enough pound notes to pay for the mini-cab ride, and were confused by the presence of pound notes at all, used to euros as they were.

"Plastic!" Vince announced, fanning a credit card before Howard's eyes.

"Where'd you get that?"

"My pocket," Vince said, shrugging.

The shop boy working behind the counter blew his curtain of black hair from his eyes and gave Howard a nod. "All right. You out shopping with Old Gregg today?"

"With who?" Howard flinched at the name, certain he'd mis-heard.

"The funky sea-man!" The shop boy gestured at Vince while simultaneously ringing up his purchases. "Definitely my favourite episode, and not just cos' I had a hand in inspiring it."

"Inspiring what?" Now Vince looked perplexed. "Hey, watch the sequins on that, will you?"

The shop boy let out a tight laugh. "Yeah. I'm the one you mentioned on the commentary. You remember, right? 'I'm Old Gregg!' Crazy bloke at the Reading Festival. God, I wonder if _he_ 's seen the episode. What do you suppose he thinks of that?"

"Stop talking about Old Gregg!" Howard burst out, making Vince jump. He had no idea what the shop boy was on about, but he didn't like thinking about the boat times.

"God, lower the pipes, Howard," Vince said, nudging him. "This is Top Shop, you know."

The shop boy was looking less friendly and more business-like now, careful to address Vince instead of Howard. "That's one hundred and ninety eight and forty-five p," he said, unfurling a large shopping bag from beneath the counter.

Vince passed over the credit card, but before the shop boy could take it, Howard snatched it from his hand and looked it over. "Vince," he said under his breath, pulling his friend aside. "It says it 'Noel Fielding' on it."

"Yeah, I saw that," Vince said hurriedly, anxiety twitching over his face once, then forgotten. "But look at the signature on the back... it's my hand-writing."

Howard turned the card over and saw Vince's familiar scrawl. "But.. this isn't _you_. You can't use a card with someone else's name on it."

"Everyone thinks that's my name," Vince whispered fiercely. "Quit trying to harsh my shopping high." He lunged for the card.

"No... no. Can't let you do that," Howard said solemnly, pocketing the credit card.

Vince sighed. "Look, keep that behind the counter for me. My friend and I need to have a word in private," he said to the shop boy, who only shrugged and waved the next customer forward.

"What's your major malfunction?" Vince asked Howard once they had parked themselves near the escalators, well out of the shop boy's ear-shot. "He was gonna let me use that credit card, you know!"

Howard paid him no mind, and instead pulled out his own wallet and sorted through the contents. "Ha! Look at that," he said, holding up a driver's license.

Vince gave it a passing glance. "Yes, you can drive and I can't. Rub it in, yeah?"

"Look at the _name_ , Vince."

"Julian... Barratt." Vince squinted, then frowned. "But that's your picture. Look... small eyes, sad, paltry mustache." He pointed between the license and Howard's face in demonstration.

"That's right, Vince." Howard returned the license to its designated slot. "Things really aren't matching up today, are they?"

Vince looked unimpressed. "They don't match up lots of days. What's your point?"

"Everyone seems to know us, know all about us, yet what they know isn't quite right. The names are wrong... the contexts."

Scuffing the toe of his boot against the floor, Vince finally had the good sense to look slightly perturbed. "So what do you think's going on, then?"

"There's a little thing called identity theft, Vince. Ne'er do wells go round looking for better lives to inhabit, and they find someone whose identity they'd like to steal. Someone who matters, someone who's an undiscovered talent. And they drug their victim up, leave him in a hotel room minus a kidney or a testicle, and run away with his identity quick as you please."

"What, like _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_?"

"No, that's aliens -- "

"Ah! I bet it was them vicious monkey folk, then. They've stolen our faces, replaced 'em with new ones, and are ruling the jungle right as we speak!"

Howard pulled a face of profound impatience. "Why would they replace our faces with new ones that look just like our old ones?"

"How should I know?" Vince made a go at Howard's pocket. "Can I have that card now? There's this stripey arm-warmer I'd like to break in."

"Would you... no!" Howard swatted at Vince's hand. "Ponder the seriousness of our predicament for a moment, will you?"

Vince made an exaggerated groan of aggravation. "Ponder for how long?"

"An hour."

"An _hour_? I can't stand around pondering something for a whole hour. What do I look like, a statue?"

"No," Howard said, his eyes flicking over Vince's fake blond hair and snug-fitting tee. "Well, not a thoughtful one, anyway. Certainly no Rodin. Okay, don't ponder. Do something about it. Get involved, like me. Think as a man of action does. If we don't figure out what's going on here, it's going to figure us out first."

Vince wrinkled up his face in confusion. "And then what?"

"It'll have us figured out! It'll have the upper hand... the edge."

"It won't have _my_ edge," Vince scoffed. "What sort of action do you have in mind?"

Howard put an arm around Vince's shoulder and pulled him in closer, looking around quickly to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "Whatever's messing about with our identity is probably nearby, waiting to make its move. I say we zero in on it first... then SHAZAYWAH! We tackle it and show it who's boss."

"It? What it?" Vince tilted his head back and looked into Howard's determined face. "Who or what are we looking for, exactly?"

"Anyone or anything unusual. Someone who looks out of place in Top Shop."

Vince chuckled. "What, like you?"

"Besides me," Howard said, frowning. "Someone with an over-sized thumb, maybe. Or a fiendishly red glow in their eyes. Someone wearing a tu-tu."

"Right then." Vince pursed his lips together as if still fighting back a laugh. "I'll go investigate over in accessories, and you can -- "

"Oh no you don't. You're sticking with me. I'm not having you shopping about when there's more serious business to be had. You'll burrow yourself in a giant cowboy hat and I'll never hear from you again. Look..." Howard pointed towards the middle of the store. "I'll hide behind one of those earring racks, pushing it along as I go, and if anyone comes near us you freeze to the spot and they'll just think you're a store mannequin. No one will have any idea what we're up to." Howard bounded eagerly towards the earrings, the beginnings of excitement pulsing through all his various man-of-action membranes.

"This is stupid," Vince muttered, following reluctantly.

And it was in this manner that they conducted their investigation, Howard pushing the mobile earring rack along and ducked behind it like the world's most un-subtle shop-lifter, while Vince moved robotically at his side, striking a model's brooding pose every time some curious person drew near. They investigated into hosiery, where they discovered a man pulling a pair of red tights over his hairy, but otherwise normal, legs. They investigated into bags and purses, where the earring rack tried to briefly mate with a metallic hobo-sack before a helpful store clerk came by and cooled things off. Then they pushed the rack onto the escalator and investigated into the men's department, where Vince forgot all about the task ahead of them and began to bemoan the baggy quality of the trousers.

"Look at these," he said, touching some guilty denim with disgust. "Two of me could fit in there."

"Vince!" Howard hissed from his strategic position. "Quit critiquing the trousers and look around for something suspicious."

Vince looked around for a shady character or two, but there was no one save a small crowd of people who had gathered a metre or so behind them with the sole intent of watching their investigation. "I don't think this is working, Howard."

"Pardon me," said a girl. "Are you putting on a show or something?"

"Yeah," added in another. "Are we being filmed? Is this for the DVD?"

Howard waved them away. "Do you mind? We're busy here."

The group muttered unappreciatively but made no move to leave. Howard hmphed and stood upright, facing them. "Look, what do you want with us? If any of you are in on this funny business, step forward now and show yourself."

"Howard -- "

A few people in the group tittered, but other than that they were alarmingly silent, staring at Howard and Vince as if in deep anticipation of what would happen next. Howard stared just as hard in return, tensed for a maniacal, villain's laugh, certain that one or all of these people were the source of all his current confusion. But no such villain stepped forward. They were just... people. Expectant and seemingly omni-present, but otherwise normal. And who were he and Vince? Two grown men in wigs and sunglasses, hiding behind an earring rack that had shed hoop earrings all the way from here to lingerie. What did they want from him? What were they waiting for? What did they _want_?

It took a passing minute or so, paired with the force of Vince's frantic smacks to his face, for him to realise that he was screaming the questions out loud.

 

 

***

Look at us.

_Julian looked up. Noel was in front of the mirror, adjusting his bunches as if quite taken with them, the feather at his crown tipped at a jaunty angle._

Jesus and Dances-With-Mod-Wolves?

 _Noel wrapped his arm around Julian's waist and pulled him closer, as if they were posing for a photograph. Their heads tipped together, Noel's feather brushing the side of Julian's face, Julian's robe getting tangled up with Noel's pointy elbow._ Jesus and his Indian Wife _Noel corrected, smiling at his own reflection. Behind them somewhere, Christine was chatting on her mobile. Paul was yelling for James._ Man and wife, man and wife _, Noel chanted in sing-song, then delivered a wifely peck to Julian's cheek._

Get my cross and thorny crown, would you dear? _Julian quipped in a deep voice, patting his Indian wife on the rump._

_It was a strange game, but they'd played it for so long that they didn't notice what was strange about it anymore._

 

 

***

"I ask you two nit-wits to take care of the bats and what do you do? Chase them out of the chameleon boudoir and into the ape salon! Don't you know by now that apes and bats don't mix? They're very protective of their hair, the apes. You of all people 'ought to know that, Vince! I expect moronitude from Howard, but you're my little Vincey boy. You're a special one, you..."

Julian felt his eyes automatically glaze over as Fossil nattered on, his words growing increasingly hard to follow as his voice rose into a strange, slurry pitch. Julian thought he was getting quite adept at tuning out the more humiliating aspects of this experience, though he'd certainly had practise at it between here and the reptile house. He and Noel had been accosted by Graham near Fossil's office, and Graham, who turned out to be a small man with thinning hair and the angular face of Lee Mack, had demanded that Noel "not share his zooniform jackets with the mangy public." A deja-vu-laden conversation in which Julian had tried to convince Graham he was actually a zoo staff member ( _not true_ , his mind argued) had followed, and came to an abrupt end when some children tried to climb into the elephant enclosure, getting the better of Graham's attention, and possibly the better of his twat-happy electrical baton.

"But.. hehe... we thought... we thought if we chased them out, they'd just fly back to the moon world." Noel's voice interrupted Julian's reverie, hiccupping with supressed laughter. Noel had been on the verge of corpsing ever since they'd entered the office and found Fossil body-popping to the Kenny Loggins' song from _Top Gun_.

"I think Howard's stupidity is rubbing off on you, Vince. The moon world is in chaos. The bats won't go anywhere near it."

"We could sort that out for you," Noel offered with ease. "Go to the moon world and -- "

"No," Fossil said abruptly, then busied himself with a mound of paperwork that was distinctly dusty and stamped with the date 1999. He was trying very hard to avoid the subject, Julian thought, and that was enough to draw him back into the conversation.

"Where _is_ the moon world?" he asked, watching Fossil carefully.

"Don't waste my time with your questions, Moon! You know perfectly well where the moon world is. But don't go there! You'll only make things worse. Get me a coffee!"

"...There's no coffee-maker."

"Good job noticing the obvious, Moon! If there's no coffee-maker, then I guess it's a sign from the coffee gods that you should mosey on over to the ape salon, round up the bats, and DO YOUR FREAKIN' JOB!"

Julian made a growling sound of frustration in the back of his throat. It quickly died away when Noel put a cautioning hand on his arm. "We'll sort it out," he said, steering Julian towards the door.

"I hate that man... so... much," Julian said as soon as Fossil's office door was safely shut behind them. "No wonder I stick with Vince. He's the only one who gifts me with even an ounce of respect and humanity."

"You mean Howard, not you." Noel touched his arm again, in concern this time rather than warning, and Julian jerked away before he could stop himself. The idea that Noel was handling all of this better than him -- better than him, despite encountering a doppelganger of his own brother earlier -- filled him with profound and irrational annoyance. Paired with this was the obscure desire to yell _what do they want?_ An urge so unfounded that it ebbed some of his anger away and compelled him to reluctantly touch Noel's arm in return, a subtle, word-less gesture that made him feel a little bit better, a little less alone, even though he wasn't sure it was safe to feel better in a place like this. Or to feel better at all.

"All right?"

"Yeah." Julian took in a deep breath that felt like it might never end. "So I guess it's on to the ape salon."

"Ape salon it is," Noel said, smiling a little. "Hey, what were you on about with the moon world back there?"

Julian wasn't certain what he'd been on about, but after a moment's thought he took a stab at it. "We keep hearing Fossil talk about chaos in the moon world, and given our own situation, I just had this inkling that there might be a connection, somehow." He glanced at Noel, then flicked at his friend's fringe, his fingers running from root to tip, ruffling lightly. "Guano in your hair," he explained.

"Oh, foulness." Noel pulled a face and brushed his fingers through his hair vigorously. "How come they shit all over my hair but not yours?"

"Dunno." Julian fought back the tiniest of smiles. Perhaps there were small, unknown perks to being Howard after all. It wasn't much to take comfort in, the fact that animals found your hair too boring to shit in, but it was better than nothing.

"Maybe the apes in the ape salon know the way to the moon world," Noel suggested, brightening up at the prospect of honing his new-found Mowgli skills. "But... we don't know where the ape salon is either, do we?"

"We're in a zoo. These places are supposed to show themselves to the paying public on a regular basis. Surely it can't be too hard to find." Julian took a few cautious steps, studying his surroundings. The sound of howler monkeys was in the air, so he followed their racket, making a wide-berth past Jack Cooper's pen.

"Why you going that way?"

"Hear that sound?" Julian pointed vaguely in the direction he thought it was coming from. "Howler monkeys."

"Sounds like a snake and a mongoose fighting, then having it off, then fighting again. What makes you so sure it's monkeys?"

"Saw a programme on primates when I was pissed."

"Ah. Hey, Ju, would you slow down? Walk more mellowly."

"Mellowly?" Julian's tongue tripped over the word as he slowed and finally turned around. "I'm just walking."

Noel pushed up the bill of his cowboy hat. "But there's not really a rush, is there?"

Julian felt a sudden ache in his back teeth and realised it was from the tension of his own hard-set jaw. "No rush to get back to our real lives?" he asked, forcing his tone into a semblance of calm. The bitter voice inside him wanted to throw in _so you can get back to your little side projects, to your hapless musician friends? If anyone should be in rush, it 'ought to be you. But no. Walk more mellowly. Merrily. Melody. Fuck you, Noel. I hate the sight of your face when I can't look into it at see a reflection of my own just when I need it. Be scared, be angry, be anything other than ultra cool Vince Noir._ He stuffed the voice away, along with the other ugly parts of himself that emerged from time to time.

"Not that," Noel said, squinting in mild confusion. "No rush to find the ape salon. It's right over there, anyway. Didn't you see it?"

Julian turned and followed Noel's gaze, his sigh one of either relief or exasperation as he spotted the very obvious sign nailed to a large tree, hand-lettered to read APE SALON with an upwards pointing arrow. A dangling rope ladder served as rickety transport into the tree, where the ape salon was presumably located. Not a very practical means of reaching the place, but since they had never portrayed the zoo as anything other than run-down, Julian doubted that Fossil had the funds to spring for a lift or an escalator.

"Convenient," Julian said flatly, taking the rope ladder in hand. It swung dangerously as he put his weight on it, but he didn't have to climb very high before reaching a square opening in what appeared to be the floor of a tree house. He poked his head through the square, immediately wincing at the smell of chemicals and, curiously, bananas. The banana smell was easily explained by the heaps of peels that were scattered about -- Julian nearly slipped and fell down as he stepped on one in his hurry to get off the rope ladder. As for the chemical smell, he supposed that could be attributed to the fact that the ape salon was in fact a hair salon. A baboon sat in a swiveling barber's chair, curlers coiled into it's rust-coloured fur, while an ape in little blue pants fussed over the baboon with a high-powered hair dryer. Three chimpanzees sat on a padded bench, reading magazines and adjusting their bra straps.

"Oh, you have got to be joking," Julian groaned, covering his face. He felt Noel grab on to his ankle and pull himself into the tree house. "Is this from your warped imagination? The ape salon as a hair salon?"

"Wot?" Noel came to his feet and looked around, brushing the seat of his jeans off. The beginnings of a smile jumped around uncertainly on his face, as if he were trying to hold it back. "Hair salon... imagine that. And look, apes in little blue pants!"

The ape with the hair dryer gave Noel something of a dirty look, then grunted in what sounded to Julian like regular old monkey noises.

"All right, you don't have to be so sensitive," Noel said, looking abashed. "The pants suit you, really. It's a good look for spring."

Julian was silent for a moment, his eyes running over Noel's multicolored hair and green jacket. "I wish you wouldn't talk to them," he finally said. "It makes me feel like you're not you." Then, without even knowing he was going to do it, he reached out and pulled the zip on Noel's jacket. It made a very loud, very zippy sound as he pulled it down, and all the chimps looked over their reading material to watch as Julian peeled the jacket from his friend's shoulders, then wadded it into a ball and tossed it into the corner of the ape salon. Noel shot the discarded jacket an apologetic look, but made no move to retrieve it.

"What about you?" he asked, nodding at Julian's own ensemble.

Julian stripped his jacket off and tossed it into the same corner, bidding farewell to the Howard-like shape and scent of it, which had come to fit him too perfectly for his own mental health.

"Better?" Noel lifted an inquiring eyebrow.

"Yeah." He was. A bit.

"Okay, good. 'Cos Roberto wants me to have a word with the bats."

"Roberto?" Julian shot a suspicious glance at the hair-styling ape, surely a Roberto if he'd ever seen one. "And what bats? I don't see any."

"They're in the cupboard," Noel explained, approaching a door made of bamboo. "Hanging from the bar." Noel opened the cupboard and poked his head in.

Julian took a step backwards, eyeing the chimpanzees warily as they chattered over old issues of _The Face_. Roberto had turned his attention back to the baboon's hair, squirting at it with a can of spray while making _ooh! Ooh!_ sounds of approval. "Noel," Julian called out, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. "Hurry up, would you?"

"Sorry," Noel said, emerging from around the bamboo door with his hair askew. "I think they're mental. They're not making a lick of sense."

"Bat-shit crazy, yeah?" Julian smiled grimly.

Noel threw up his arms. "They claim they can't sleep, that somebody left the lights on in the moon world. It's mad."

"So tell Roberto to lock the cupboard. They'll catch some Z's in the dark and be fit as a fiddle by morning."

"I'll try," Noel said, shaking his head in doubt. "But Roberto keeps his capes in there."

Julian backed away yet again as Noel starting arguing with Roberto, the odd phenomenon of human words being used in response to inane ape grunts almost too much for his ears to handle. Hard bamboo plied into his arse as he backed right up against a windowsill and nearly tumbled out the opening. A fresh breeze hit the back of his neck, and it slowly dawned on him that at this height, he'd probably be able to see all of the Zooniverse. It took a long time for him to turn around his head and face the view, the sensation of foreboding that prickled over his skin almost guaranteeing that he wouldn't find any solace in the sight.

There was nothing but the blazing broken egg of the sun at first, lowering in the west over a horizon that might've been mountains, or buildings, or nothing more than a bulky ridge of clouds. He squinted and tilted his head, but his eyes were either unable to recognise the landscape, or the landscape resisted his gaze. It shifted around like a wavering mirage, sparkling with the promise of quenched thirst. It was like looking into everything and nothing at once: all the possibilities of their weird, self-imposed world, which seemed to have everything but a foreseeable exit.

If he were a kid again, he might've cried at the sight. Instead, he looked down. The branches of the tree spread out beneath him, shading the ground below. A purple bird clung to a leaf, a bit of straw in its beak as it tilted its head at him, puffing out its smug little breast.

"Wake up," Julian whispered to himself. "Wake up."

Then he shifted backwards and lifted his feet off the ground. It was such an easy move. It took no effort at all. His shirt ballooned around him and the bird took off in an angry flurry of feathers as he threw himself out of the ape salon window.

***

 

"Look, Roberto, you can stash your capes in a trunk. Trust me, I've owned a few capes and they won't get that wrinkled."

The ape squinched up his pie-face and gave the can of hair spray a few listless squirts. _Vhat kind of salon do you think I am running?_  he asked. _Vee do not let bats sleep in the cupboard. This is not a vhorehouse._

"A... vhorehouse?"

_A vhorehouse! Let the vhinged mice have it off in the cockerel lounge. They haff no standards, de cockerels._

Noel gave Roberto a scrutinising look. "What's that accent about? Aren't you from Africa or something?"

_I am from Prague. And your friend, he is now jumping out the window._

"Wot?"

There was a creak, followed by a leafy rustle that was punctuated by the sound of a body hitting dirt -- unmistakable despite the fact that Noel had never heard a body hit the ground before. He made a dash for the open window, leaning as far out as he dared with his left hand anchored to his hat.

"Julian!?" He attempted to scan the ground, but the branches, still swaying from their abrupt parting, revealed only tiny, possessive glimpses of Julian's prone form.

He heard a tiny groan.

"Fucking hell," Noel swore, hopping onto the window sill and clinging to it for support. He poked his leg blindly into the air, finally connecting with a stout branch and easing out onto it. He picked and prodded his way through the crown of the tree, finally jumping to the ground when he reached the lower-most fork of the trunk. Mud squelched from the force of his landing, and Julian, flat on his back in a blanket of it, let out another weak groan.

"Ju!" Noel sank to his knees at Julian's side. "Did you hurt anything? Are you okay?" He raked his eyes over his friend's sprawled form. There was an angry looking scratch on Julian's cheek, but nothing appeared to be bent or twisted into an unnatural angle. Ridiculously, Noel reached out and pressed a palm to Julian's forehead, as if testing for fever. Julian slowly moved his head from side to side, moaning again. "Julian, say something," Noel said, pulling a dried leaf from his friend's hair. "Are you all right?"

"No. Noooo," Julian said, wincing.

"No?" Noel yanked his hand away, wondering if he'd hurt him.

"Noooo. You're not supposed to... be here." Julian opened one eye and looked at Noel blearily. "I'm meant to wake up back in my room. Alone in my room."

"Alone in your room," Noel repeated, flatly. "You jumped out the window cos you wanted to get back?"

"There's no other way out." Julian closed his eyes again, moaning softly to himself.

Looking at him, face red and bleeding, clothes now tattered and muddy, Noel thought he'd never seen a more pathetic sight. It didn't fill him with pity, but rather a simmering undercurrent of rage. What if it had worked? What if Julian had hit the ground, then woke up back in the hotel with a blinding headache and everything familiar back at his fingertips? Everything but _him_ , his supposed best mate?

"What the fuck are you playing at, Julian?" Noel said, giving Julian's shoulder a rough shake despite the fact he might be injured. Then he shook him again, for good measure.

Julian's eyes popped open and he half sat up, propping himself on his elbows. "I want to go home!" he said, half-shouting. "I want to fucking go _home_!"

"And you think I don't? What were you planning to do, just leave me here?" Noel heard the question come out with all the force of a whimpering school-girl, and he cringed at himself, at his own neediness and fear. It was Julian who made him like this, who made him feel alone when he shouldn't have to be. He curled his hands into fists and ground his knuckles into the mud, averting his eyes.

"What about you? Seems you're doing just fine here." Julian gave Noel a look of such heavy resentment that Noel actually felt it, all heavy like a brick in his gut.

"That isn't true," he said, his voice strangled by the weight of the brick.

"You like being Vince," Julian said, his expression hardening even further. "You're terrified of not being Vince. Of being ordinary."

It sounded like something Howard might say, but it was delivered in the cold, matter-of-fact tone that belonged to Julian alone. Julian's voice of certainty. The voice that always made Noel stop and listen, because in the end, the voice was always right. Unlike Noel's own, which had the tendency to speak in more soothing half-truths -- even when he was only speaking to himself.

"That isn't fucking true!" Noel raised his fist and held it high, his whole body shaking with anger and adrenaline and the thick, unbidden desire to bash the fuck out of something. Julian held his gaze, his eyes narrowed beneath the tumble of his mussed hair, daring Noel to follow through.

Noel's hand came down hard in the mud, instead, spattering muck over himself and Julian.

"Fine then," he said, his voice tight. "Be alone, if that's what you want. I'm going." He came to his feet, relishing the flicker of surprise on Julian's face before he turned and stalked through the underbrush.

He waited for Julian to call out, to call him back. But he didn't.

_And you're not afraid of being ordinary, in your own way? Why do you insist at every turn that you're nothing but, then? What's that all about?_

Noel wrapped his arms around his torso as he walked, chilly in the shade now that he didn't have his jacket. He stumbled on a root, then paused to kick it. Pain shot through his big toe and he let out a yelp, hopping on one leg and then lowering himself onto a tree stump. He felt sick to his stomach. When was the last time he and Julian had fought like this? Aside from their fist fight twelve hours earlier, he couldn't remember. They'd had their violent share of rows in the past, one where Noel had even kicked a door closed on Julian's face, but that had been about something that seemed stupid and insignificant now. Somewhere overhead, a bird called, its single note so mournful that it seemed to echo the grave timbre of Noel's thoughts.

Even in the midst of his own anger, Noel wanted to return to Julian. Long shadows were falling across the ground, and it occurred to him that he had no idea where he was. This place was nothing but trees and vines and bright pink and blue flowers -- pretty, he supposed, but there was something creepy about the feral, moist scent in the air. He got to his feet and began to walk, having no particular destination in mind but half-hoping that one of his legs was shorter than the other and that he'd end up back at the base of the ape salon, where Julian was most likely moping. He would have preferred to push his way through the leaves and vines, to exert himself as a way of distracting his mind, but they had a weird way of seeming to part for him when he approached.

"Stop that," he said aloud, tugging at a shying vine. "I'm not him, all right? Feel free to slap me in the face like you would anyone else."

The light grew dimmer. In the distance, he heard a wolf howl. Definitely a wolf, and not an owl pretending to be a wolf.

"Julian?" he finally called out, reluctantly. There was no answer, save his own crunching footsteps. Soon, his footsteps were less crunchy, and he looked down to find that he was wading through a pile of shredded cheddar. "Ew," he said, jumping away. The cheese was dried and old, like paper confetti. He shook it from the toe of his boot, then, after a moments thought, kicked some bark and dirt over it, not sure why he was giving a half-hearted burial for the fictional Tommy Nooka. His remains served as proof that Noel was in the jungle room, but he didn't feel any better for knowing this. The purple-blue light that was now coming from beyond the trees only added to his feeling of unrest, and he stood in place uncertainly, a part of him anticipating what would happen next, but simultaneously in denial that such a thing were possible. He held his breath and listened to the mad rhythm of his own beating heart, fighting the urge to run. It couldn't be... hearing animals talk was one thing, but there had to be a limit to the strangeness of the days events. No, no, it wasn't possible.

There was a rustling noise, and the trees seemed to move to one side as the purple-blue light grew stronger and a platform rolled into view, its brightly coloured background like rays of a psychedelic sunrise framing a black afro sun.

Noel closed his eyes, unaware of his own whimpering.

"I go by many names," a deep, resonant voice boomed. "Some call me squeezebox, the juicy delight. Others call me double oh seven, the spy who loved me. Some call me coca-cola. Others call me --"

"Nooo," Noel croaked, trying to will the voice away.

"Nooo! Yes, that is precisely what some call me. Though I have never understood why."

Noel's eyes popped open. Rudi was sat on an amplifier in his purple sacred monk robes, smiling his benign, gap-toothed smile. "Go away!" Noel squeaked, throwing his arms out.

"Is that any way to greet the man who vanquished your enemy, who so recently brought you back to life on the earthly plane so that you might breathe this sweet air once more?"

Noel's scream died in his throat, he was so thrown by this declaration. He forced himself to look at the man straight on, his body quaking as he took in the towering hair, the dark skin that was decidedly not make-up. It was still Julian's face, and yet it wasn't -- there was no trace of laughter in the eyes, no hint of a shared joke between them. This man, this Rudi, looked as serene and placid as a living Buddha. "What?" Noel said stupidly, his thoughts reeling.

"Your shaman friend has revivified you, yes? No thanks are necessary, my lady. As a high priest in the order of the psychedelic monks, it is all in a day's work for me." Rudi closed his eyes and smiled in a self-satisfied way. "I hope your head is not too sore, after having endured such a thorough stump... well, let us not speak of past unpleasantries."

"What do you want?" Noel asked. He was having a hard time deciding which was worse, seeing his brother's face in Naboo, or seeing Julian's here, as Rudi. Both were horrifying, and he now understood what had compelled Julian to throw himself out that window. If he'd been able to move his feet, which were currently shocked into a locked position, he would have ran from this place and never stopped, not even if it meant propelling himself off wolf cliff or sheep mountain or whatever else might lie out there.

"You are searching for something, yes?"

"Yes, yes, I am!" Noel said, an unexpected note of desperation entering his voice. "I need a way out of here. I need to get home."

"The jungle room exit is somewhere behind you, and beyond that, your humble keeper's hut." Rudi made a grand gesture, his purple sleeves rustling.

"Not that home." Noel groaned and pressed a hand to his forehead. "God, this is useless. You can't help me, you're just a part of the story."

"One must read all parts of a story before he can reach the story's end," Rudi said, sounding a bit affronted.

"Where does _this_  story end, then? Tell me that, you door-headed nutjob." He couldn't stop the anger from entering his voice, couldn't fight off the feeling that this was all some elaborate joke at his expense.

"When you reach the ending, of course," Rudi said, either ignoring or oblivious to Noel's insult. "Ah," he looked up, as if inspired. "The sun will soon set. But even so, it will be shining in another part of the world. Is that not fascinating?"

"Not really." Noel wished desperately that Julian was here -- perhaps he would have been able to get some answers out of himself.

"You are searching for something, yes?"

Noel frowned. "You asked me that already."

Rudi said nothing, only looked at Noel expectantly, his heavy head cocked to one side like a spaniel's.

"Yeah, okay..." Noel sighed. "I'm looking for... the moon world." It wasn't something he had planned on saying, but the words came from through his mouth as if pushed up there by the whims of his gut.

"Ah!" Rudi held up a finger, enlightened. "When it has risen, the path of the moon's rays will lead you to the moon world. Follow the rays. Let them guide you like a creamy laser."

"All right," Noel said, not overly impressed.

Rudi made a slurring noise of contemplation through his teeth. "Perhaps there is more that you seek, and the answers lie within yourself?"

Noel opened his mouth to say no, but stopped himself. "I don't know," he finally said, uncertainly. "I guess the answers might lie within myself, if this place can be considered a part of myself. It's more than I don't know what the question is." _Unless the question is as simple as 'why are we here?_ ' his mind added.

"Perhaps when the answers are found, the question will present itself." Rudi frowned at his own words. "Yes, that's a rather obvious conclusion," he muttered, looking disappointed with himself in a way that struck Noel as very familiar.

Noel felt his face twitch, and realised that he was smiling. Just a little. "Can't you open up that door in your head and pull the question out on a mysterious scroll?" he asked, almost teasing.

"This is not a kinder egg dispenser," Rudi said, pointing at his head. "The door of Kukundu only reveals what it chooses to, in its own good mystical time."

"What good is that, then?" Noel asked. Rudi was a character he'd never really been able to wrap his head around. A wise man, he'd thought him, though Julian had always insisted that Rudi was more of a fool. But then Julian insisted that all his alter-egos were fools, almost as if he couldn't perceive of a world that wasn't entirely populated by them.

"So doubting, you are," Rudi said, sounding a bit like Yoda in _The Empire Strikes Back_. "You remind me of my friend Spider Dijon. You even resemble him to some degree." Rudi squinted hard at Noel. "Yes, around the eyes. And in the arse."

Noel grinned. "You remind me a bit of someone, too," he said.

"I am glad to hear it. Would you like to kiss my balls now?"

Noel reeled back slightly, taking in Rudi's wide, generous smile. "Uh, why would I want to do that?"

Rudi made a pained face, and for a second Noel wondered if he was going to burst into tears. But then the door in his head let out a creaking sound, opening far enough to reveal a disembodied hand. It had something in its clutches. "Gah, get that for me, would you please?" Rudi asked.

"Um." Noel approached warily, quickly snatching what looked like a piece of paper from the hand's grip, then fighting back the urge to wipe off his own fingers on his jeans. It felt remarkably obscene to pull something out of someone else's head, to feel all that bristly hair brushing against his wrist.

"Ah." Rudi sighed with contentment as the door creaked shut again. "What have you there?"

Noel stared. It was a photograph of Julian and him. A recent one, taken during their tour. Julian was smiling widely, that laugh-out-loud smile that he so rarely gave the camera, made slightly fiendish by the wolfish quality of his teeth, and Noel was tucked up against his shoulder, pouting comically. As was typical, Noel was a little taken aback by how girlish he looked, but he was more struck by the expression on Julian's face, and wondered what had been said just before the shutter clicked to make him smile like that.

"The question," Noel said, giving the photograph one more searching glance before sliding it into his back pocket.

"The question whose answers lie within yourself?"

"Yeah, think so."

"Splendid!" Rudi clapped his hands together. "Now... where were we? Ah, yes, now you may kiss my balls."

"No thanks. I think I'd get lost under your sacred robes," Noel added, not wanting to hurt Rudi's feelings for some reason. He took a step closer to Rudi's amplifier. "But, seeing as you did help me out..." he bent over and hesitated, wondering what on fucking earth he was doing. Rudi watched him through crinkled eyes, curious and expectant. Noel only meant to pop a little kiss on Rudi's cheek, but his mouth disobeyed him and swerved at the last minute, pressing flat against Rudi's mouth. The kiss was firm and fleshy, more business-like than romantic, but Noel was filled with disappointment, just the same. He didn't know what he'd been expecting. He pulled back quickly, tucking his hair behind his ear and smiling weakly.

"Why thank you, my dear," Rudi said softly, his eyes shining.

"No problem," Noel said, looking away. Everything about him ached.

"Perhaps you should go in search of your answers now," Rudi advised, folding his hands together and closing his eyes, his zen-like demeanor returning.

"Yeah, I will. Cheers." He lifted his hand in a brief wave, but Rudi's platform was already gliding away, disappearing into the heart of the forest, into the last, lingering rays of the setting sun.

 

***

 

Julian's head hurt, but he couldn't tell if it was from his fall or from the harsh words exchanged between Noel and himself. He knew that what he'd said to Noel was unfair, but they were brought about in the anger and frustration of the moment, and he didn't regret his words because Noel had yet to explain his actions, had yet to explain why he'd written something without Julian. They'd never written anything for the Mighty Boosh by themselves, and Julian was still stinging over the betrayal of finding that script on Noel's hotel dresser.

It was, weirdly, like having walked in on a cheating lover. The scandalous sight of a stranger's hands all over familiar territory that he'd long ago committed to heart.

That cheated feeling was what has loosened his mouth; not Noel's newfound ability to speak to animals, or his amiable way of rolling with the unexpected curveballs of the Zooniverse.

If Julian felt guilty now (and he did, behind the aching of his brow), it was for all the unfair thoughts he'd had about Noel in the past, all the unkind things he'd thought about his friend before he became a friend. When they'd first met, before Noel had even spoken Julian had sized him up, taken in his damselly clothes and glossy smile and had thought to himself _there's someone who was born for no reason other than for hair to have an extra place to grow in the world_. Then Noel _had_  spoken, of course, and Julian had to live with the downright wrong-headedness of his assumption.

Everyday, he lived with it. The fact that Noel had sought him out, seeing all the best in him, while Julian had stood by reluctantly, never certain of what Noel had to offer. Not at first. The certainty came later, only to be stolen away by a scattering of papers, infidelity committed through ink rather than sex.

Julian forced himself to sit upright. His back groaned in complaint, but a quick test of each limb verified their basic workings as intact. His face felt damp, and when he lifted his hand to it, it came away covered with mud rather than the blood he was expecting. Noel must have splattered them both, he realised as he found more smears down the length of his arms.

He stood up. A nearby tree was shading him with large, rubbery leaves. He reached up to pluck one off a branch, thinking he could use it to wipe himself down. The branch seemed to hoist itself just out of reach when his fingers were about to catch hold of the leaf. He frowned and reached for another, standing on his toes, and the branch retreated even further.

"Oh, come on!" he yelled, jumping to no avail. He yelled again, a wordless noise of frustration. Then he picked up a rock, hoisted it and threw it. To his surprise, it hit the ground with a distinct splash, creating a riot of ripples in a pond that was covered in so many lily-pads that that he'd failed to notice it.

He walked over and sat himself on the rocky bank, scooping up a palmful of murky water and running it over his muddy arms. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he threw more water on his face. It was not quite cold and smelled faintly of fish. Once he'd scrubbed the water out of his eyes, he looked into the pond only to be startled by his own reflection -- his face had the red, bleary-eyed quality of a madman's. He blinked hard at himself, trying to relax his facial muscles, and the reflection shimmied slightly.

He stared, unable to look away. It seemed as if his own face was overlapping with... Noel's? It wasn't possible, but then why did his eyes seem to be blue?

There was an abrupt, huge splash and water coursed over him, drenching his shirt and trousers and knocking him backwards with a yelp. He writhed on the rocks, coughing to clear his startled lungs, then opened his eyes only to have more water drip into them. He couldn't see anything but pink froth.

"Are ya all right, Howard? Did I scare you?"

"What?" Julian coughed, wiping the water from his face.

"Are ya all right, Howard?" the voice repeated, and Julian felt his chest contract in recognition.

"I'm not Howard," he bleated, turning over onto his hands and knees and trying to crawl away, not knowing exactly what he was crawling away from but determined not to find out. The rocks dug into his kneecaps, slowing him down. Plus something had a hold on his shoe and was clinging fast.

"Where ya goin', Howard?"

"I'm not Howard," he said again, finally looking over his shoulder and taking in the scaly skin, shimmering with droplets of water.

"Sure ya are," Old Gregg said, caressing his trapped ankle. "Look at these strong, noble legs. They couldn't belong to anyone but you, Howard."

Julian flipped over onto his back, shaking his leg vigorously. Old Gregg dropped it, looking disappointed. "What's wrong, Howard? Ya look like you're gonna vom all over yourself."

"Look," Julian gulped, staring up into Gregg's incomprehensible face. "Look," he repeated, having no idea how to finish the sentence. Old Gregg smiled his white, biting smile and kneeled down beside him, the fishing lures on his jacket clinking together harmoniously. A powerful, salty smell wafted from his long, bedraggled sea-weed hair, and while Julian watched, a small snake dropped out of it, then winded his way back to the water's edge. A lily pad sat comically on his head, like a little hat.

"Look at you," Old Gregg said, touching his knee. "Found Old Gregg at last, like I knew ya would. Been waiting for ya, Howard. Been living off peanut whales and frog legs."

"Waiting? Why?" Julian croaked. They were the only words he could manage. There was something of Noel in Gregg's vivid blue eyes, but mostly, he felt as if he were face to face with an honest to god sea monster. The hungry, desperate clawing of Gregg's webbed hands only added to this feeling.

"We had such a good time, Howard. Don't ya remember? I gift-wrapped myself for you and then we sang and danced, just like that time at Gregg's Place." Gregg's eyes seemed to mist over at the memory. "Are we gonna sing now?"

"No. No singing," Julian said, crab-walking backwards a little.

Gregg only moved closer, snapping the fingers on his gloved hand together so that the fringe waggled merrily. "I'll help you with the words," he said, humming a few notes. "Do you love me? Are you playing those love gaaaaaaames with me?"

"No! I'm not!"

Gregg cocked his head to one side, seeming perplexed. "Why not, Howard? I've been waitin' in this here pond for you. Knew you'd find me, I did. Ya always do."

"I'm not Howard!" Julian tried to twist out of Gregg's grasp, but this only had the unfortunate effect of seeming to tug his trousers down a bit, so he stilled himself at once. "I'm... I'm Julian, Howard's brother," he said desperately.

"Julian?" Gregg pressed his scarlet lips together in doubt. "I don't think so, Howard. I know you, I love you." He bent over Julian, his nostrils flaring a little. "I know your scent. Your taste." His unnecessarily long tongue flicked out slightly as he spoke, as if he were sampling the air that Julian expelled from his lungs.

"No, okay? No," Julian stammered, his hands coming up against Gregg's chest and pushing ever so slightly. "This isn't funny, now. Just... stop it."

"Stop it?" There was that head cock again, that wide, unblinking stare. "That's not right," he cooed, fluttering his fingers over Julian's hands and straddling his torso in one quick, eel-like movement. "You're supposed to say 'you're movin' too fast, this isn't a race, mmmmmmmmm...'" He held the _mmm_  much longer than necessary, at the same time moving Julian's hands lower, closer to the fluffy, insidious mound of his tutu.

"Stop!" Julian said again, trying to yank his hands free. Gregg's grip, however, was inhumanly strong.

"You're supposed to be singing, Howard," Gregg said, looking exasperated. "Or don't you love Old Gregg no more?" His face collapsed slightly, as if he couldn't bear the thought. Julian's heart thunked like a traitor's, pained by that hopeless expression.

"There is no Old Gregg," he whispered.

"'Course there is. I'm Old Gregg," Gregg said, smiling again. "You know me, you've seen me..."

"I really haven't --"

Before he could finish, Gregg's fishy lips were planted against his own, tongue diving between them despite the noises of protest he made in the back of his throat. He thought he'd suffocate in the fetid perfume of Gregg's breath, or choke on his own retreating tongue. His belly did an unpleasant flip-flop, and he thought briefly that he _might_  vom -- mostly because he'd kissed Old Gregg before, but it had only been Noel in a stupid wig then, and the experience had been nothing, nothing like this. Thankfully, Gregg pulled away before Julian could up the paltry contents of his stomach, his green, scaly face shadowed by confusion.

"Why aren't you kissing me back like you did before, Howard?" His webbed hand cupped Julian's chin. "Don't ya remember?"

"That wasn't me!" Julian said, wiping his mouth off with the back of his hand. "That was Howard. It was just part of the show! It didn't mean anything!"

"Didn't mean anything?"

"It wasn't real, all right? It was just an act. For fuck's sake, No --" Julian cut off abruptly, alarmed at his own near-slip. This wasn't Noel. It didn't smell like Noel, it didn't _feel_  like Noel.

"So you were just using Old Gregg?" Gregg let out a sigh, which was followed by a small smile -- not a gentle, endearing one, but rather a slow, side-long and half-sad grin that sent a shot of fear into Julian's belly. The smile of a disciplinarian who claims to be sorry to dole out punishment, but privately revels in it just the same. "You leave me at the altar. Then you use me, forget my own sweet name. I'm Old Gregg!"

"No. No, it's not like that."

The smile widened, red like an obscene wound. "I'm gonna hurt you."

Julian believed.

"NOEL!" he screamed, his lungs aching with effort. The name became a single, barking note as he repeated it again and again, loud enough to send Gregg's hands over his ears. Julian saw his chance for freedom and threw himself backwards, hard, knocking Gregg over as he tried to scramble to his feet. More rocks dug into his palms and knees and his body seemed to move at a jellied snail's pace, like it did in nightmares, and he realised with horror that this was because Gregg had a hold on the back of his shirt. "Get off!" he yelped. "Get the fuck off!"

"Julian!"

His shoulders were shaken roughly, and he reached up to blindly strike out at his attacker, his arms wind-milling.

"Oww! Cut that out, will you? Calm down!"

Julian's vision cleared. Noel was crouched over him. Noel, not the sea transsexual with a painted-up version of his face. His brow was crinkled in concern, his cheek red where Julian had struck him. "Noel?" Julian said, not trusting his eyes. He reached up at touched the red spot, Noel wincing slightly as he did so.

"Yeah, it's just me. What are you yelling for? I ran as fast as I could." He had. He was panting.

Julian kept his hand pressed to the side of Noel's face, certain that if he pulled it away, Noel would shift back into Old Gregg, would come at him with scaly, possessive claws.

He couldn't answer. He only gulped and blinked, like a caught, floundering fish.

 

***

  
Streets whizzed by -- too quickly for Vince to catch their names. Well, not that quickly, he'd just never been what anyone would call a speed reader. Howard let out another muffled noise from Vince's lap, tossing his head fitfully from side to side and cuddling his face quite near the bulge that filled the crotch of Vince's lacquered-on trousers. Vince overlooked the potential embarrassment of this moment, instead studying the angry little pinpricks that studded his friend's cheeks and neck, wondering idly if they were bug bites before remembering how Howard had gotten tangled up in that earring stand in the midst of his fit in the men's department of Top Shop. It was his fall from the escalator that had rendered him into this curious trance, though, where he seemed half-way between dreaming and unconsciousness.

Vince had never heard of a person falling from an escalator before, so he wasn't surprised that Howard had managed it. It was probably wrong to smile at the memory of it -- Howard had been in some fresh kind of fury, after all, and not even the sharp slap Vince had delivered to his face had stopped him from screaming various expletives at everyone. Then he'd snapped out of it, or so it had seemed for a moment, and made a mad dash for the escalator, his foot hooking around the earring stand and bringing it down on top of his floundering self. He'd rolled around in the metallic mess, refusing help from all those he'd just insulted, and struggled to his feet, limping to the escalator like a lame buffalo.

It was strange how he'd turned around on the moving stairway to face all of them as he descended, as if he were departing to another world -- the Mother Ship, maybe -- and then suddenly, as if pushed, he'd done a clumsy waltz into the handrail. His eyes locked on Vince's, filled with an improbable mix of fear and something akin to ecstasy, the wig flying from his head as he tipped over the handrail and fell, landing with a thud on the ground below.

Vince only found himself wanting to smile now because of that brief look on Howard's face: a trembling exhilaration that called up some memory from deep inside Vince. Not a memory he could see, but one that he could feel, rising up within him just as surely as Howard's feet had risen up from the moving steps of the escalator.

They'd all run to Howard's felled self, everyone watching his twitching form while Vince kneeled down at his side and gave him a cautious poke in the belly. Howard had whimpered and made funny little pawing motions with his hands, but hadn't opened his eyes. It reminded Vince a bit of a jazz trance, except there was no jazz, and Howard was flat on his back. Still, Vince talked himself out of slapping Howard again. The shop-boy from upstairs (Gavin, as his name turned out) wanted to call an ambulance, but Vince had recruited his help carrying Howard up the escalator instead, then borrowed a twenty pound-note-thing for a mini-cab. All of Top Shop was exceedingly understanding about the incident, which Vince thought only right seeing as Top Shop was basically the best place on earth. He was a little surprised that no one tried to haul a brick at them, though, or had come at them with a coat hanger. That was what would typically happen when he and Howard got up to no good in public.

Howard smacked his lips together and sleepily pressed them further into Vince's crotch, creating enough pressure to make Vince shift uncomfortably in his seat. Blood rushed to his face, heating it up like a strong flirtini would, and he saw the cab driver trying very hard not to peer into the rear view mirror.

"Oi," Vince said, jostling his knees slightly. "Open up your small eyes, would you?"

Amazingly, Howard complied, his eyelids fluttering slightly, followed by knitted eyebrows as he took in the up-close sight of Vince's lap. "Where am I?" he asked, voice gravelly.

"Back of a mini-cab." Vince bounced his knees again, and Howard sat up with a groan.

"I've got a blinder. What'd I drink?"

"Nothing."

Howard rubbed his face. "Did I sellotape an instrument to my head again? Get naked and play a trumpet?"

"Nah. You shouted at some people in Top Shop, then fell off the escalator."

Howard chose not to comment on this revelation, instead pressing his forehead to the window and letting loose another small groan. "Where are we going?"

"Back to the hotel." He watched Howard's back, but there was no movement to betray his reaction. "It was the only place I could think of to go," he added, reproachful.

Howard nodded stiffly. "That's a good idea," he said, as if surprised that Vince had had one. Then he grew quiet, again. Sullen, almost, as he slouched against the door of the cab and hid behind his mussed hair, his long legs bent and folded toward his chest.

"Hey, Howard. You all right?"

"Yeah." Howard waited a beat, then continued. "I'm just waiting for you to lay into me."

"Wot?" Vince's eyebrows rose in surprise. "What would I lay into you for?"

"For getting us banned from Top Shop for life, I expect," Howard grumbled, drawing his hands into fists.

"Ah, nah. They didn't care."

"What?"

"Gavin even gave me money for the cab."

"Oh! So they _paid_ us to leave, you mean."

"Well..." Vince frowned. He hadn't quite thought of it like that.

"See what I mean, Vince? The world really isn't ready for us. Just when they're asking for autographs, just when they think they've accepted you -- BAM! -- the door slams shut at your heels."

In a rarified moment, Vince chose not to reply. He hitched his boots onto the seat instead, leaning against his side of the cab in an unconscious mimicry of Howard's brooding display. Howard stared at him. "BAM!" he said again, clapping his hands together for emphasis.

Vince pursed his lips together. "Complete rubbish," he said.

"What is?" Howard asked, forehead wrinkling in confusion.

"Your ridiculous theory, that's what." Vince pointed the toe of his boot in Howard's direction. "Sometimes I think you _want_  to be an outcast, you know?"

"What are you on about?"

"Your whole..." Vince waved his hands vaguely, searching for words. "... Mister Misunderstood act! I've been thinking, you know, and I think you've got one of them inferiority complexes."

"You've been thinking, have you?" Howard said, his voice edged in pointed disbelief.

"Sometimes I think! When you're not around for me to talk to, I don't really have a choice."

"I thought you listened to Gary Numan when I wasn't around. Or straightened your hair. Or re-arranged your wardrobe."

Vince didn't answer. Normally, that was exactly what he did, but he didn't have his Clarke straighteners with him at the moment, or his wardrobe, and all his efforts to strike up a conversation about Gary Numan with the cab driver had failed dismally. Also, reality seemed just a little harder to ignore today, for whatever reason.

"Vince?" A lick of worry had crept into Howard's tone. Good.

"Just think about this, Howard. If you didn't have me to complain to, would you complain at all?" Vince pulled away from the door and stared hard at his friend. The seriousness of his expression felt foreign to the muscles of his own face.

"I don't know," Howard said, looking so honestly befuddled that Vince was almost sorry for putting him on the spot. He'd never really seen Howard at a loss for words before.

Vince nodded curtly as the mini-cab pulled to a stop. "Go on. We're here."

The old lady who had been walking her toy poodle in front of the hotel that morning had returned, and her pooch was once again sniffing the same lawn strip, circling and eager to no doubt dump another pile of steaming mess in the same spot. Vince crouched down next to the poodle and made a chastising _tsk_  under his breath. "Can't you find a more discreet place to do that?" he asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Howard pause at the hotel's front doors.

"Excuse me, young man," the old woman began.

"Hold on a moment, please," Vince said, holding up a finger, then addressing the dog again. "Like around the corner? Or behind a bush?"

The dog circled once more, ignoring Vince's words as he hunched over and began to do his business, the wind blowing his floppy ears back.

"Hey!" Vince protested, coming back up to his feet and plugging his nose shut. "God, what'd you have for lunch?"

The dog panted, oblivious to his words.

"Come on, Vince," Howard called, and Vince came to his side, feeling unsettled and rejected. Maybe the old lady's dog was deaf. It did happen sometimes, animals and hearing loss.

Someone pulled the lobby doors open before they could push through them. Someone very short, and Vince nearly tripped over him in his hurry to get away from the haughty poodle and its elderly owner. "Oof," he said, catching his balance on the person's slight shoulders. "God, sorry, I didn't see you --"

He broke off. The hair was different, and the turban was gone, but it was Naboo. _Right?_  He was wearing regular clothes, and thick-framed, stylish eyeglasses. But that mildly-irritated expression was hard to miss.

"Naboo?" Howard asked, saving Vince the trouble.

Naboo frowned. "Noel," he said, pulling the doors open wider for them. "Where the fuck have you been? Pamela's going spare."

"Who?" Vince was pushed forward slightly by Howard, and he regained his senses long enough to enter the lobby, still confused by Naboo's change in appearance.

"Pamela. She's been ringing your mobile like mad. Here, you left it at the club." Naboo passed over a sleek little phone.

"Why don't I get one?" Howard asked abruptly, eyeing the phone hungrily.

Naboo shrugged. "Yours is in your room, I guess. Rich said he could hear it ringing all morning." He took a step back and studied them with an all-too-familiar expression of scepticism. "Why'd you go and tie him up to the radiator like that? His feelings are really hurt, and now the maid thinks there were kinky happenings in your room last night."

Vince fingered the mobile. It didn't look like his phone. It was silver and plain, no flashing lights on it at all. "We didn't tie up any Rich person," he said, finally pocketing the mobile. "It was Fossil, that country spazz."

"Fossil?"

"Yeah, _Fossil_. Fossil the American zookeeper? Has porridge for brains?"

Naboo shook his head slightly. "That's not funny, Noel."

"His name isn't Noel!" Howard said loudly, taking hold of Vince's elbow.

Naboo was unimpressed, crossing his arms over his chest and studying both of them for a long moment, looking as if he were trying to suss out a particularly difficult algebra problem. "Rich told me you guys were pretending to be Vince and Howard," he finally said. "Joke's gone on long enough, hasn't it?"

"It's not a joke," Vince said, shaking his head.

"Noel..."

"I'm not Noel!"

Naboo threw up his arms. "Stop it! I told you it's not fucking funny!"

Vince drew away slightly. He'd never seen Naboo holler before, or witnessed his face go an unpleasant shade of frustration-induced lavender. "I'm not trying to be funny," he said in a small voice. "All day long people have been calling me Noel, and they've been calling Howard Julian. But we're not them, all right?"

"Okay, fine. I give up." Naboo started to stalk away, moving as fast as his short legs would take him. "Just call Pamela back when you're finished with your thing. She's furious that you fucked up the interview."

Vince and Howard exchanged looks. "Er. Who's Pamela?" Vince called out tentatively.

Naboo turned around long enough to show both of them his middle finger. "I'm telling Mum," he said, then disappeared into the hotel's pub.

"Naboo knows your Mum?" Howard asked with mild interest.

" _I_  don't even know my Mum," Vince said, shaking his head in confusion. "I was raised by Bryan Ferry, remember?"

"That's what I thought."

Vince barely heard Howard. He couldn't shed the odd feeling of awareness that was weighing down on his usually-thick head. Why had Naboo only addressed him, and not Howard? Why hadn't the dog heard him? He opened his mouth to ask Howard, but instead heard himself say "Hey, who do you suppose Noel and Julian are, anyway?"

Howard snorted. "Pair of berks, probably."

"But they look like us! Everyone thinks we're them."

"Maybe we are --"

"Do you think we're --"

_Them?_

Vince's hand automatically reached for Howard's.

"Maybe we should..."

"Pretend?"

Vince nodded. Then he walked toward the hotel pub, Howard in step beside him.

The pub was new but decorated to look old-timey, with quaint signs and dark woodwork, the lighting all done up in faux gas-lanterns. Naboo was pulled up to the bar, nursing a lager. A man with dirty blond hair was sat next to him, swallowing down the last of a scotch on the rocks. Vince wrinkled his nose and steeled himself; he much prefered the idea of having a drink in some club with seizure-inducing lights and siren-music, but if Shamen had their drinks in boring hotel pubs, then so would he.

"All right?" Vince said, trying to sound casual as he straddled the stool next to Naboo. It occurred to him that Naboo didn't really seem like a Shamen anymore. He didn't have his familiar or his turban or his hookah. He looked... painfully ordinary, in fact.

Naboo put down his lager. "Are you finished?" he asked, his dark eyes humourless.

"With the joke? Sure." Vince smiled his most winsome smile and waved the bartender over. "Flirtini, please."

"Flirtini," the blond man chuckled obscurely.

The bartender looked pointedly at Howard, who mumbled something about sherry.

An uncomfortable silence followed, in which Vince nervously picked at the shredded remains of his nail-varnish, wondering how one began to ask about the people everyone kept mistaking them for. He expected he should be subtle -- trouble was, he'd never quite known the meaning of that particular word, <i>subtle</i>.

"So!" Howard said, in a falsely jovial tone. "How's Na...nonsense. How's nonsense with you two?"

Vince flicked his eyes to Howard's, nodding in slight approval. _Brilliant save._

"I'm tired," Naboo said flatly. "Was hoping to get home today, but we were waiting around for you two so long that the hotel's gone and booked us for another night."

"Oh. Sorry about that." The bartender sat Vince's drink down. He turned it round and round in his hands, looking for the cherries. There weren't any.

"What were you out doing, anyway?"

"Umm... we went to Top Shop?"

Amazingly, this seemed the right thing to say. As if Vince had pushed some kind of magic button, both Naboo and his friend burst out into raucous laughter. "What, _again_?" the blond man asked, his voice slurry with semi-drunkenness. "And you actually got Julian to go with you?"

Howard's laugh was one long, too-bright note. "Not until I had him promise to go with me to this jazz-fusion gig later tonight."

"Yeah, well..." Vince met Howard's eyes again, his gaze slightly narrowed. "I only promised cos' he saved me from this crazed fan earlier today. Some mental minx tried to have it off with the hair."

"What gig are you going to?" The blond man was leaning in closer now, and there was something strangely familiar about his blue eyes, Vince thought. He tried not to be hurt at their apparent lack of concern over the state of his hair. It could be that this Noel person wasn't all that into grooming.

"Oh, it's uh..." Howard sipped at his sherry, stalling for time.

"Polar Bear? They're playing Blow the Fuse tonight, aren't they?"

"You... you like jazz?" Howard looked agog at the blond man.

He shrugged. "Yeah, some."

" _Polar Bear_?" Vince momentarily forgot to hide the disgust in his voice. "You're terrified of polar bears."

"Polar Bear the jazz-rock fusion group," the man said.

"Yeah," Howard added, as if he'd known this all along. He was inching away from Vince now, approaching the blond man with a renewed interest that brought a frown to Vince's face.

"What's wrong?"

Vince drew in a sharp breath. Naboo had leaned in very close to him, speaking in a low tone, as if they were about to share a secret. He opened his mouth; he was terrified he'd say the wrong thing. His eyes chased hopefully after Howard, but he and and the blond man were already prattling on about Miles Davis. "Nothing," he said hastily, taking a big drink of his flirtini and grimacing. It wasn't as sweet as the ones he'd had before.

"No, really." Naboo put his hand on Vince's sleeve.

Vince stiffened and stared at the hand, realisation thundering through him all at once, as if he'd been given a shock -- dropped a hair dryer into his bath, maybe.

"Okay, wait. But you have to admit that Charlie Parker... Charlie Parker knew what he was doing when..."

Howard's voice faded into the background, the quickening thud of Vince's own heart filling his ears as he stared at that small hand. It was the exact shape of his own, he noticed, only in miniature.

 _What's wrong... what's wrong_.

_That look on Howard's face. That strange mix of terror and thrill as his feet came from the ground. And then he's flying at me... flying to me. And then our hands meet in mid-air. And then I'm laughing, and then he's laughing, and I don't know where mine ends and his begins and, and..._

Vince bounded to his feet, the remains of his drink tipping over with a clatter.

"Howard!" he shouted. "Howard! We were --"

_Dead._

 

***


	4. part four

 

  
**A Journey Through Time and Space**

***

part four

Sometimes, Howard felt as if he were from a different world. A different era, maybe; one full of smoky jazz clubs and men of grand designs. Men in slouchy hats who always spoke the truth, no matter how hard-bitten that truth might be. But as much as he had always enjoyed imagining that world where he was sure he belonged, he had, in the last few hours or so, come to doubt its existence. He'd read once that roughly seventy-two species of insects, plants, and animals became extinct every day, so maybe the same was true of certain types of men, as well. It didn't help matters that he literally no longer knew who or where he was, and for the first time in quite a while, he gave thanks that he had Vince's predictable presence to fall back on. His carefree arrogance, his well-honed sense of self-indulgence -- if not for that, Howard would have floundered, would have sunk fast into the darker parts of himself that he sometimes sensed were there but had never really examined up close. Like it or not, Vince had fostered within him a desire to stay near the surface, where the sun still reached.

It wasn't easy, though, experiencing a paradigm shift in the course of a single day -- he would have rather been trapped in a box by some regional-specific nutjob. He was tired and in want of a drink, and the little glass of sherry he sipped at did little more than wet his whistle. It wet his mustache, as well, and he blotted it dry with the back of his hand, letting out a silent burp as he did so.

The pub, at least, was quiet and tasteful. And these two men, the not-Naboo and his friend, were treating him and Vince like semi-regular people, not staring at them like they were exotic creatures sent from a different universe. The other bloke, the blue-eyed one, even claimed to like jazz, and Howard orbited near him out of both curiosity and doubt. He had yet to run across another person who _really_ appreciated jazz as he did. Well, another person who didn't wear a flaming top hat, anyway.

"Miles Davis or Charlie Parker?" Howard asked the man in a low voice. This question was a serious test. Behind him, Vince and Naboo were engaged in a conversation of hushed undertones that he had no trouble ignoring.

"Oh? God, I dunno." The man waved for another drink. "Miles Davis?"

Howard carefully kept his face neutral. "Okay. But _why_ Miles?"

The man shrugged. Much too careless a gesture as far as Howard was concerned. "I like trumpet better than saxophone, I guess."

"Yeah, trumpets are pretty good," Howard confessed. "But you have to admit that there are two schools of jazz music: before Charlie, and after Charlie. I mean, the Bird changed jazz forever. Miles was one of the first to play those low, romantic notes on a _trumpet_ , sure, but only 'cos he played with Charlie and heard how it was done on the sax." Howard shivered unconsciously, as he often did when he waxed poetic about one of his passions. "Charlie knew what he was doing. He was the maverick, and Miles followed in his hero's path."

The blond man tilted his head to one side. "Haven't you told me all this before?"

Howard blinked. "Have I?"

The man took a slurp of his bourbon, snickering slightly. "Think so. Anyway, I like the more recent jazz-fusion a lot. You know, loud guitars. Like the stuff you play."

" _I_ play?" Howard slowly lowered his glass of sherry onto the bar, almost missing and dropping it.

"Sure."

"But... you mustn't mean me. I don't play any --"

He didn't get a chance to finish. There was a clattering of glass, and the unmistakable rustling sound of too-tight trousers being forced to stand upright in a hurry. Howard pivoted around at once, taking in Vince's wild, animated expression.

"Howard! Howard! We were--" Vince's mouth jumped up and down, as if unable to continue, and he looked quickly down at Naboo, his abandoned performance occurring to him belatedly. Then he looked back to Howard, his mouth slowly closing. He looked quite as if he'd just been punched in the face, left dazed rather than injured.

"Uh, yeah, _Noel_?" Howard asked pointedly, lifting his eyebrows at the outburst.

"You said you were finished," Naboo said to Vince at the same time, clearly hassled but not really all that surprised.

"Nothing," Vince said stupidly, ducking his head as he tried to help the bartender clean up the mess he'd made with his drink. "Sorry, I am finished. I just... I was born with this tic, you see..."

"Born with a few of them," Naboo said mildly.

"Haha," Howard forced a laugh, earning himself daggers from Vince. Howard shrugged apologetically and turned back to the blond man, leaving Naboo to finish scolding Vince. "So. You like the way I play guitar?" He flushed as the words came; they sounded more insinuating than he'd intended.

The man grinned. "You're being odd tonight," he said, and the hazy way his smile didn't quite reach his eyes suggested he was well on his way to being quite drunk. Howard wondered if he could use that to his advantage. It's what Columbo would do, that's for sure.

"I guess I am," Howard said, pausing long enough to order the man another bourbon, as well as one for himself. Screw sherry. It was for housewives and old ladies. "You ever play 'loose tongues' before?"

"Play what?"

Howard winced. _Loose tongues_. That didn't sound too promising, did it? He was a poet-novelist, but words seemed so slippery now, all attached with a fuse that could ignite like dynamite, bringing about a whole world of wrong. He'd never worried about words before like this; they'd always gotten him from point A to point B, no matter what dodgy detours might've come along the way. "It's just a drinking game," he explained hurriedly. "Your drinking partner tells you something true about yourself, and if you agree with what they say, you have to take a drink."

"Um, no." The man rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Who starts?"

"Me. Tell me something true about Julian Bear -- Barratt." Howard clutched the bourbon glass in his hand, bracing himself. He shot a quick look over his shoulder. Vince's attention, however, was elsewhere. In his fresh drink, mostly, which he was slurping down with concentration while Naboo said something to him again about that Pamela person he was supposed to telephone.

The man rested his chin in his hand, squinting and looking Howard over. "Julian Barratt is... clearly from Leeds."

"Yes!" Howard said, a bit too loudly. He couldn't help but smile as he took his drink.

"That one was easy," the man admitted. "All right. What's something true about Dave Brown?"

Howard almost choked on an ice-cube. The invention of his plan hadn't gone so far as to consider his own participation in it. "Oh, er... Dave Brown?" He stared the man up and down, knowing by now that they (they being Dave and Julian, and not Dave and Howard) were obviously well-acquainted. "Dave Brown is... the hardest working man in show-business?" he said, hazarding a guess.

Dave let out a deep laugh, then took a hearty drink of his bourbon. "That's a true fucking story. Thank christ I don't have to wear that ape-suit again for a while."

"Ape suit?" Howard asked with interest. He'd worn an ape suit himself, once upon a time, and knew they weren't exactly comfortable. Very humid 'round the family jewels.

"What are you two talking about?" Vince was watching the scene now, looking decidedly nonplussed as he held his flirtini glass in a loose, half-drunken grip, like that of a pouting diva.

"Just glad the tour's over, s'all," Dave said, draining the rest of his tumbler and stretching with a force that sent all his bones popping.

"I'll drink to that," Naboo murmured, lifting his pint.

Vince and Howard stared at one another, both sets of eyes wordlessly communicating their mutual confusion. "Why're you glad?" Vince finally ventured.

"Because it's fucking tiring," Dave said, smiling weakly. "Don't tell me you're not tired of Vince."

At this, Vince quite visibly shuddered, and Howard fought the urge to move to his side and put a steadying hand on his shoulder. It would look weird. Especially in a masculine, dark-paneled pub like this one.

"Well... " Vince began after a moment, still agog and bewildered.

Dave laughed. "Okay, maybe not you, but I _know_ Julian's tired of being Howard."

Now it was Howard's turn to shudder, to experience the creeping sensation of wearing flesh that suddenly didn't feel like his own. His own was gone, shaken off like dusty scales from a butterfly's wings. Lost to the daily extinction.

"Yeah," he finally said. Just that one word, and it came out more like a meek sigh than anything else.

Dave rubbed one of his eyes, drunkenly oblivious to the discomfort he'd just caused. "Mike and I are going to meet Rich across the street. Get some dinner. Wanna come?"

 _Mike?_ Howard shot a quick glance at Naboo, who had stood up and pushed his lager glass aside. "No. Thanks, but we'll stay here."

"Call Pamela," Mike-Naboo said sternly, pointing a finger at Vince -- not Howard -- as he left with Dave.

The silence they left in the wake of their departure was unusually loud. The bartender was arranging his glasses, and their muted clink was the only noise for awhile.

When Howard finally spoke, he let the first word slip out with little thought. " _Mike_ ," he said, then took a swig of his drink, choosing not to elaborate.

" _Mike_ ," Vince echoed, with a smidgen of disgust. "What sort of shaman can get away with a name like that? It's like if Leroy were a shaman."

"Leroy!" Howard said, inspired. "Why don't we ring him? Get out that phone Na -- Mike gave you."

"I don't know," Vince said, looking wary as he pulled out the phone and began to search through the memory. "None of these names are familiar. Chris... Christine... Pamela... Paul... No Leroy.

"Pamela. Naboo... I mean, Mike, he said you should call her, yeah?"

"But I'm not going to call anyone who's furious with me, am I?" Vince poked his tongue into his glass like a hummingbird, found it empty but for a sticky trickle, and gave a dejected sigh. For someone who'd not long ago given him a lecture on inferiority complexes, Howard though Vince was acting awfully sullen. Maybe it was the alcohol. Instead of lifting his spirits, it had filled him like an iron balloon, left him pasty in the dim lights of the pub, and his hair uncharacteristically wilty. His smudged eyeliner leant him a spooky air, and as he hunched over in his barstool Howard noticed that the outline of his spine was a knobby rope, clearly visible through his clingy tee-shirt. In short, Vince looked... not very good, for Vince. Tired and too thin. Howard didn't know whether to be concerned or relieved to have proof, at last, that Vince was human after all.

"Not a problem, Vince," Howard said, smiling the kind of false winning smile that can only be brought on by a good stiff drink. "She's furious with _Noel_ , remember?

Vince sighed again, then re-opened his phone, pushed a button, and pressed the apparatus to his ear.

"Hey.... uh, Pamela? Yeah, okay, I can hold." He rolled his eyes at Howard. "Pamela! It's... Noel. Yeah. No. Wait, what? He's right next to me. You do? Oh, okay."

Howard could hear a faint female voice from the other end as Vince spoke, but it was hard to say who was more surprised when Vince held out the phone and said "she wants to talk to you. Or Julian, anyway."

"Me?" Howard carefully lowered his drink back onto the bar. "But you were the one who was supposed to call her!"

"And I'm telling you that she's asking for Julian. Are you up to being him or not?" Vince pressed the phone into his shoulder as he spoke, masking his words from Pamela's ears.

"I..." Howard lifted his hand, then hesitated. Julian was clearly from Leeds, according to Dave Brown, and so was Howard. How hard could this really be? "Okay. Give it here."

He held the phone a few inches away from his ear, then took a deep breath and plunged into the digital static. "Hi, Pamela."

 _"Julian!"_ The voice was tinny and sounded like it belonged to a thirteen year old. A very angry thirteen year old _"What the fuck? No, I meant where the fuck. Where the fuck were you two? Robert says he'll cobble together some live show footage and old interview clips, but shit, he's hacked off. I promised him ten minutes and you couldn't fucking deliver? Jesus!"_

"Oh." Howard gulped, then sidled a look at Vince, who was himself leaning in, curious. "Noel and had a bit of a situation this morning... a fan situation. Fans trying to rape our hair. Trying to... take things to a certain level, you know. A sensual level?" He licked his lips nervously. While he might admire improvisation in terms of jazz, it was a slightly different matter to try it out over the phone.

_"What, again? Look, don't let Noel strut around in public so much. This isn't the anonymous Auto Boosh era anymore..."_

Howard closed his eyes against the persistent voice. _Boosh._ What was it about that word? It meant something, but trying to remember what was like trying to remember the first time he ever heard John Coltrane: impossible, even though he knew it damn well shouldn't be.

_"...NME is doing a write-up. Yeah, another one. Look's like it's your arses they're buttering up this spring, so get ready..."_

And what did she mean when she said "don't let Noel..."? Howard didn't know about Noel, but Vince always did pretty much whatever the seven hells he wanted. He didn't listen to Howard, that much was certain. Even now, he was trying to press his head up to Howard's, his ear greedily seeking out his place in the conversation.

_"...God, okay, autumn tour? Paul and the others are still talking, but it's developing into a possibility. I know what you're thinking, and I promise it won't be as long as this one was..."_

No, really, she didn't know what Howard was thinking, because what Howard was thinking was _who am I? Where am I? What is this?_

"Pamela!" he blurted suddenly. Vince turned his head, strands of his hair getting caught in Howard's mouth, then pulled away slightly and lifted an eyebrow. "I've... got somewhere to be, I think," Howard said uncertainly. "Noel and I have to get to dinner. With Dave and Na... Dave and Mike."

_"Fine. Call Robert and apologise, if you get a chance. I'm counting on you to patch things up, Julian."_

Howard clicked off and handed the phone back to Vince. He felt dazed. Unreal. Overwhelmed by the responsibilities and respect he had always craved but didn't now particularly want.

"I heard that," Vince said, suddenly alert and excited, his cheeks flaring with a lively flush. "NME... a tour... interviews. We're in a band! We're famous!"

"It's not us," Howard mumbled, his hands scrabbling across the bar for his drink. He tried to imagine himself on the cover of _Cheekbone_ or _NME_ , and failed entirely. Not even having Vince by his side could conjure up the image properly.

"And god, there's a lot of numbers in this phone. I must be really popular."

"How many times do I have to tell you, Nathan No Comprehendo?" Howard said, the burn of alcohol lending a bite to his voice. " _Noel_ is popular. Vince is just someone you're supposed to be tired of being."

Vince slowly shut his phone, looking not mollified, as Howard had hoped, but curiously calm. Almost gratified. "You mean Howard. You're supposed to be tired of being Howard."

"I _am_ Howard!" His hand tightened around his glass, white-knuckled. Then there was a silence in which he could feel Vince peering at him.

"Do you really get tired of being yourself?" Vince finally asked, unconsciously leaning closer as he spoke, his fingers fluttering against Howard's wrist in concern. "The way you fell from the escalator in Top Shop... you looked, I don't know. Was it an accident?"

Howard yanked his hand away. "I wasn't trying to _off_ myself, Vince. I was... in a rage. Riding the bad ju ju. Off my tits on coconut cubes."

"You were in a Top Strop," Vince said, smiling very slightly.

"I'm prone to Top Strops while in Top Shop." Howard's voice was thin, so he wet it again with the bourbon. It tasted like the old west. Like hot, sun-warmed saddles and lasso burns. Fuck, he was a little drunk. "I just felt like I had to get out of there... Christ, is it just me or has this day seemed to drag on for years?"

"I seems really, really long," Vince conceded, nodding his head. "Most days fly by in about thirty minutes, seems like."

"More like twenty-five."

"You know, they say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes in something like a minute," Vince said, raising his eyebrows as if he'd just offered up a profound and wise tidbit instead of an absolutely odd segue.

"Is that meant as some jab at the length of my pre-death picture show?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you going to brag about how your pre-death picture show is going to be two hours long, with ice cream at the interval? Because its not the length that matters, it's the action that you pack in." Howard pressed a hand to his stomach, feeling it gurgle at the words _ice cream_. He hadn't much to eat today, and, as already observed, today was turning out to be really long.

"Pay attention Howard. You're missing my point. It's not about pre-death pictures shows, it's about..." Vince paused rather dramatically here. "... _post-death._ "

"What about it?"

"Nothing," Vince said, pivoting slightly in his seat. "Just this." And with that, he scooted his bar stool over with a _skreetch!_ of alarm, then reached out and gave Howard a very hard and unexpected pinch on his upper arm, causing Howard to let out a yelp.

"What?! What was that?" Howard bolted backwards, nearly tumbling out of his bar stool, and massaged his arm, glaring.

"Oh." Vince watched Howard's ministrations, disappointed. "You mean you felt that?"

"Damn right I felt it." Howard held out his arm. "Look at that! You've bruised me up a peach." He gave Vince a look that was two parts bafflement, one part exasperation. "And this has something to do with death, somehow?"

"Well," Vince said slowly, massaging his chin in thought. "It's just that I figured we were dead, and that you'd probably not feel it."

"What's wrong with you?" Howard asked, the question almost playful, but tinged with weariness. "Knowing you, you've touched me a couple times today, and I was solid enough then, wasn't I? Plus I've been dead before, and your hand didn't go through me then, either." Howard shook his head, wondering at Vince's thick-headed-ness, and where on earth he'd conjured up the notion they were _dead_. He hadn't seen a Grim Reaper in months... years... well, it had been a very long time.

"So maybe we _are_ dead, even if we are solid, and this is like... our afterlife," Vince ventured, his eyes wide, slightly glassy.

"Would you stop? I don't know where you're coming up with this nonsense, because I --"

"The last thing I remember is my life flashing before my eyes," Vince went on, oblivious to Howard's interjection. " _Our_ life," he clarified, briefly losing his glassy look as he focused on Howard's face with an intensity that nearly made Howard blush. "And I was floating, and you were coming at me fast like the northern juggernaut, and I reached out quick as you like and grabbed hold of your hammy-hands, and we took off together."

Howard shivered with realisation; the scenario Vince was describing sounded ludicrous, but it _felt_ palpably real, like his body recognised it even though his mind did not. "Together where?" he asked, voice dry.

Vince gestured at their surroundings. "Here, I reckon."

Howard looked around. It was just a pub. Faux-posh, to match the hotel's image, and not likely set foot in by anyone other than tourists or weary businessmen. It certainly didn't match his idea of heaven _or_ hell. The best it could be was some kind of purgatory. But it wasn't, because they _weren't dead._ Howard sighed at the very twisted idea, and the bartender, who was polishing glasses, set his rag down and came near, as if anticipating another round of drinks.

"Sorry to interrupt," the bartender said, his cheeks going pink. "But could I trouble you to sign something?" He paused, and the next words came in a single, hurried breath, as if to spare himself some kind of further embarrassment.

"I'm a really big fan of your show."

 

***

It was past suppertime, and the Zooniverse was closing down. And when the Zooniverse closed down, the Zooniverse _closed down_. It seemed obscenely dark and deserted as Julian and Noel limped out of the jungle room. Specifically, Julian limped, having banged his knee not in his fall from the ape salon, but in his hurry to wriggle out of Old Gregg's grip.

And as for Old Gregg...

"He was here. Here was here, I'm telling you!" Julian had said, his tone barbed with defence against the disbelief he seemed to anticipate. But Noel had believed at once, not simply because he had just left behind his own encounter with Rudi, but because Noel always believed Julian. The tell-tale claw marks scribbled across Julian's ankles were all too real, as well, and looking at them had caused the small leaden ball of guilt in Noel's gut to build up to more substantial proportions. Soon, it would be a cannon ball. He'd always fancied Old Gregg as a definite, though basically harmless, serial killer, but Julian had always found him a bit more sinister. Until now, Noel had chalked Julian's unease up to Old Gregg's garish makeup and tarty costume, to his pathetic desperation, but the scratches on Julian's skin told a different story. A decidedly _more sinister_ one.

Noel had looked away from the scratches with haste, not prepared to contemplate why he had run into the more benevolent psychedelic monk while Julian had encountered a non-benevolent psycho. A psycho that had been of Noel's invention, whose desperation had been an unapologetic exaggeration of his own.

And their meeting other versions of themselves, that couldn't be coincidence, could it? Not here. Unconsciously, Noel patted at his back trousers' pocket to see that the photograph he'd taken from Rudi's door of Kukundu was still there. It was.

"I'm all right," Julian said, gamely shaking off Noel's pro-offered shoulder. "It's just a bruise."

Noel stepped back and let Julian stand on his own. There were insects humming off-key in the trees, and while leaving behind the wilds of the jungle room ought to have been a relief, the labyrinthine walls and passageways of the Zooniverse were less than welcoming now that the sun had dipped out of sight.

"Looks like the works have wound down," Noel observed. "Guess that means we can knock off."

Julian frowned and sniffed the air, as if the idea didn't really appeal to him but he couldn't think of anything else better to do. "What do Vince and Howard do, exactly, when they knock off?" he asked, sounding exasperated with their alter-egos.

Noel didn't have an answer for him. All the lapses of real life had never applied to how they had imagined life in the Zooniverse. All the idle nose-pickings while sat on a couch clad in nothing but underpants, or the long intervals spent crouched on the toilet with a magazine while attending to a sickening, squidgy shit. No, for Howard and Vince it was always one madcap adventure after another, except for... "They have a cup of tea," he finally piped up. "Or they sprawl out and watch _Calabus the Crab_ on telly."

"I guess some tea would be all right," Julian said grudgingly. "Would rather have something stronger." The way he sucked in his lips, as if tasting a sour lemon, suggested he was in an ever darker mood than he was letting on, perhaps holding back as apology for his cruel words from earlier. He needn't apologise. The way he had shouted for Noel across the jungle room, his voice cracking with need, trusting that Noel would appear, was apology enough.

"We can check the hut again. Maybe there's booze squirreled away somewhere we haven't checked."

Julian lifted an eyebrow, then appeared to mull something over in his mind a moment before speaking. "Maybe you could ask the animals where to get some," he finally said.

Noel nodded mutely, cautiously taking these words as a sign that Julian had forgiven him for having temporarily inherited Vince's gifts, or was at least getting used to the idea.

Julian opened his mouth to say more, but was silenced by a thrashing from some nearby bushes -- bushes that were not safely ensconced in an animal enclosure. They rustled again, movement now visible in the paltry light, and Noel unconsciously stepped to one side. Both men would have been startled to know how much they looked like Howard and Vince just then, Noel taking cover behind Julian's taller frame, and Julian's eyebrows knitting together in an improbable mix of caution and curiosity.

"What if it's ocelots?" Noel murmured.

"Ocelots?" Julian held up a finger, indicating Noel should lower his voice.

"They're vicious 'round here, seems like. Munched down on Tommy Nooka like he was an old twix, remember?"

"But he was part-man, part-cheese. We're all man. Men."

Noel fought back a giggle at _all man_ , and the bushes rustled again, this time punctuated by a singular groan, human and not at all animal in nature. Noel and Julian exchanged looks of mingled confusion and surprise, then moved stealthily toward the noise, watching the bush rustle again, a hand appearing as it struggled to grab purchase from the flimsy branches.

"Halp," a voice strangled out, curiously accented. "Halp."

Julian parted the branches, and enough of the zoo's sodium lights penetrated the bush to reveal a ruddy, sweating face and a pair of blood-shot, bright-blue eyes.

"Dave?" Noel gasped. "You're here, too?"

"Mooner, Vince... halp meh." Dave croaked, floundering weakly on his back.

"Not Dave," Julian muttered.

Noel closed his eyes and sighed. _Of course not_. The accent was a shitty and over-powered version of Crocodile Dundee's, and the hair was longer, fashioned into a purposeful and unstylish mullet. "What are you doin' in the bushes, Joey?" he asked, bending over and helping Julian haul the other man to his feet. Once stood upright, Joey proved to be more than just ruddy; his skin was as red as a freshly-steamed lobster's. In fact, there were tendrils of steam coming _from_ him, curling like cigarette smoke from his dampish hair. He looked, in the words of Dave/Bollo himself, like a jacket potato.

"Ah, I've been fried up like a shrimp on the barbie," Joey said, examining his crimson arms. "What a sight."

"Fall asleep in your hammock, mate?" Julian asked, giving Noel a secretive smile. Well, he _did_ look awfully funny, and Noel thought it charitable that neither of them had made the "beans or coleslaw?" joke yet.

"No Mooner," Joey said, glaring. "I was doing your job for you again, transportin' the bats from the ape salon to their home in moonlight world."

"What for? They were fine in Roberto's cupboard." This from Noel, who found it unfair that Julian should be held accountable for Howard's ineptitude. Neither of them were real fucking zoo-keepers, and neither was Joey Moose. This wasn't even a real zoo.

"Roberto keeps his capes in there," Joey sniffed. "And Mr Fossil wanted the bats transported back to their proper habitat." He nodded firmly, as if Fossil's word were law.

"Maybe, but that doesn't explain the state you're in," Julian began, gesturing gingerly at Joey's person. "What's bats got to do with you looking like a strip of beef jerky?"

"There's..." Joey pursed his swollen lips together, looking as if he were debating how much to reveal with his words. "There's something wrong in the moon world. The closer I got to the place, the more the little fellas acted up."

"'Course, you berk," Noel said easily. "They're afraid of the place. Told me they can't get any sleep in there."

Joey nodded. "Right you are, Noir. And the reason they can't sleep is because --" Suddenly, the distinct sound of expensive leather shoes was travelling across the courtyard, and he nervously licked his lips and went silent at the sound of their approach..

"Moose! What are you doing over there, huddled up with Moon and Noir?" A man stepped into the light, regarding all three with a sneer that his bushy mustache did little to disguise.

Noel stared at the man, the song from "Mutants" running through his head at a merry clip.

_Berry head on an Ayoade body._

Except that wasn't quite right. Matt and Richard hadn't been cut apart and spliced back together in slap-dash fashion. Rather, the man before them was an improbable blend of the two: tall and dusky-skinned like Richard, but with Matt's booming voice and soft, blurry facial features. Judging by the sudden intake of breath from beside him, Julian was just as confounded by the sight as Noel was.

"G'day there, Mr Bainbridge," Joey said, distancing himself from Julian and Noel with a not-so-casual side step. "I tried to transport the bats, just like you and Mr Fossil asked me, but when I got to the moon world I found that --"

"Quiet, Moose! I find the sound of your voice repulsive, and the bacony texture of your face is making me want to vomit from my eyes. Go see Graham about a salve!" Bainbridge then pointed in a way that left no room for argument, and Joey, limping badly and still steaming a bit around the ears, shuffled off.

"Bainbridge," Julian murmured. "How fucking perfect."

"What's that, Moon?" Bainbridge boomed, still pointing. "Why are you and your ugly girlfriend skulking about after closing?"

"Same could be asked of you," Noel said, then regretted it at once. He wanted to see the humour in this encounter, but Bainbridge had never been a friend to Howard and Vince on the show, and he probably wouldn't be a friend to them now. Matt took too much delight in playing Bainbridge as a complete bastard for that to be a possibility.

"I own this zoo. I can skulk wherever and whenever I please." Bainbridge jabbed at the air triumphantly. "And I can order _you_ two to skulk about in my place. For as it so happens, I've got a date tonight, and have no time for skulking."

"What are you talking about?" Julian asked, frowning.

"The moonlight world, you imbecile! It will destroy the zoo if we let it, so I am ordering you two to skulk out to it, then board up the doors and windows before things spiral even further out of control."

"What, just because of a few mental bats you want the whole moon world shut down?" Noel pulled a sour face of confusion.

"Maybe he's locking someone away in there. Another Tommy Nooka type," Julian suggested. His tone was casually speculative rather than accusatory, but Bainbridge puffed his chest out in indignation anyway.

"What's that, Moon? If you don't want to go the way of your precious Tommy Nooka, then I recommend you zip those lips."

Julian shrugged. "He's not precious to me. Do whatever you like."

Bainbridge squinted, clearly caught off guard by "Howard's" unruffled demeanour. "What's come over you, Moon? You don't seem your usual, skittish self."

"Really now," Julian said, and Noel thought he might be fighting back a smile.

"Really," Bainbridge sneered. "And since you're not skittish, you'll have no problem shutting down the moon world tonight." He rummaged through his pockets and pulled something out. Something made of a silky fabric that kept coming and coming in great, swathy lengths, like a magician's scarf. "Take these with you," he said, passing the wads of fabric over. "You may need them."

"Ponchos?" Noel guessed, fingering one of the garments. It seemed entirely shapeless and without function.

"Light mittens," Bainbridge said, the two words canceling each other out so thoroughly that he might as well have said _dark shoes_ or _cold bow ties_.

" _Mittens_?"

"MIT-TENS," Bainbridge said. His emphasis bit the word in two.

"Mittens are small! And hand-shaped!" Noel protested, flabbergasted by this nonsensical turn of events. He examined the fabric again, and saw no resemblance whatsoever to mittens.

"Would you rather wear a meat girdle?" Bainbridge was practically snarling, but the suggestion seemed to cheer him, somehow. "The meat would be cooked to a crisp, and would drop off in succulent chunks from your body. We would gather 'round and gobble them up with long pitch-forks." He smiled now, but it was a villain's smile. He even reached up and twirled his mustache a little as he let out a laugh.

Julian and Noel looked at each other. _He's gone wrong._ The thought was so powerful that Noel wondered if it wasn't just him thinking it, if the weirdness of the moment hadn't allowed Julian's own thought to telekinetically overlap with his own.

"Um, no," Julian finally said. "No meat girdles, thanks."

"Then it is settled." Bainbridge nodded stiffly. "Now, as I said, I have a date --"

"Where are you, my Bainy-boo?" A simpering voice called out from nearby. Fossil's. He rounded the lemur enclosure and stopped short when he saw three of them. "Oh, it's you two," he said, wary. "What are you doing to Bainbridge?"

"Not much," Noel said, wanting to laugh at the implication in Fossil's question. "But he wants to eat succulent chunks of meat off my body, or so he says."

Fossil gasped, appalled, while Julian let out a laugh. The sound bouyed against Noel, pleasant and warm.

"Shut up, Moon," Bainbridge barked at Julian, even though it was Noel who had smarted off.

"Poppet, I thought we had a date," Fossil said, his eyes welling up as he gazed puppyishly at Bainbridge.

"That's right." Bainbridge was blustering a bit, his cheeks red like apples. "I'm going to spend the evening punching your flabby gut with my fists."

"Ooh!" Fossil clapped his hands together, delighted, and Bainbridge sighed in disgust, grabbing him by the sleeve of his polyester shirt.

"Take care of the moon world, you fools," he called out, dragging Fossil along as he left. "Or I'll see to it that you're transferred to the zoo for animal offenders." He let out a booming laugh over his shoulder, his heels sharp on the paving stones as Fossil struggled to keep up.

"What a dick," Julian said flatly.

"Yeah, didn't expect much else." Noel lifted one end of the weird bundle of fabric Bainbridge had given them. "What the fuck do you suppose 'light mittens' are? I don't remember ever writing about something like that, do you?"

Julian shook his head. "We never wrote about the moon world going haywire, either, though."

Noel chewed on his lip thoughtfully, wondering what it meant if the Zooniverse was sort of... creating its own narratives. Without their help, that is. Was that even possible? Who was writing the story, if not them? Whatever the answer, if was clear they were just players now. Chess pieces being bumped across a board.

"What do you --" Noel began.

"I don't know what it means," Julian said, anticipating his question. "I don't know what we're suppose to do, either. We don't even know where the moon world is."

"Ah," Noel said softly. "Someone... sort of told me how to get there."

Julian's eyebrows darted up in surprise. "Who? Roberto the ape?"

"No. Rudi."

Now the skin between Julian's eyebrows crinkled up in confusion. "Rudi... _my_ Rudi?"

"Yeah."

"When?"

"In the jungle room. After," he said, meaning _after our fight_.

Julian appeared to think this over, idly bunching the fabric of the light mittens together between his hands. "Did he look like me?"

"Yeah. But he wasn't... he was real, you know? The hair, everything. And he was _wise_ ," Noel finished, a teasing note entering his voice.

Julian smiled faintly. "He's an idiot. But I expect he meant well."

Noel nodded. There was no way he was going to tell Julian that he'd kissed Rudi. That he'd hoped it would be like kissing the one who'd created him.

"So where is it, anyway?"

"Where's what?"

"The moon world. You said Rudi told you where it was."

"Oh, right." Noel stopped petting his own armload of light mittens. "He said we have to wait for moon rise, then follow the rays to the entrance."

"What?" Julian sighed and tipped back his head. "See, I told you he's an idiot. Where the hell is the moon, anyway?"

Noel looked up. Through the trees, the stars were coming out, brighter than any he'd ever seen before. They were almost _too_ starry, constellations as obvious as if they'd been connected dot by dot with a neon marker, and while he watched, a shooting star zipped across the surface of space, squealing in joy as it went. "I guess it's not up yet," he said quietly. "God. It's not going to look like _me_ , is it?"

"Might."

Noel shook his head. "That'll be too much."

"Compared to what's happened so far?" Julian grinned. "I don't think so."

Noel looked up again. He could see the big dipper, and it was dipping, star dust splashing from the bowl and falling across the sky like golden glitter.

Sometimes he wondered if anything would ever be too much for him.

 

***

"Hey. Hey. Hey Vince. Am I doing it? Am I? Vince?"

Vince lifted his eyes lazily from the stack of clothes he was folding into colour-cordinated piles on top the hotel carpet, a soothing activity that calmed down the crazed limbic pulsing that was pounding behind his forehead. Most of Howard was hidden beneath the bed, but his arm stuck out from beneath the hanging dust ruffle, waving around aimlessly as if conducting a symphony of lazy musicians.

"Are you doing what?" Vince rolled a studded belt into a tight little coil.

"Pulling shapes!" Howard's voice was slurry. The bottle of bourbon they'd taken from the bar was on the bedside table, nearly half-drained.

Vince stared at his waving arm. "No. Not even close. Looks like you're swatting at flies."

"Damn," Howard groaned, muffled beneath the bed. "This is hard."

Vince pushed the stacks of tee-shirts aside and crawled across the floor, grabbing at Howard's hand. "Get out from there. I'll show you," he said, tugging. Howard's shoulder appeared, then finally his head. A wispy dust-bunny clung to his brow and Vince wiped it away, pulverising it between his fingers. "Come on." He stood in front of the mirror that was mounted to the wall in from of the dresser, watching as Howard came up behind him on unsteady feet. "Now look," he instructed, curling his shoulders in, then snapping out his arms. "I'm the side panel of a... " He stopped and frowned at his reflection, then snapped his arms again.

"What?" Howard asked, trying to imitate his movements.

Vince snapped his arms a third time, his elbows creaking in complaint. "It's not working. I'm not pullin' anything."

Howard squinted. "You're right. You're just bouncing around like a popped corn kernel."

Vince frowned and fluffed up his hair in back. "I've had too much to drink," he said, moving back to his pile of clothes.

"But I want to learn," Howard complained, still trying to contort his body into shapes in front of the mirror. "I'm bored."

" _You're_ bored. Think how I'm feeling." Vince un-folded and re-folded a weird jacket made out of some papery, tie-dyed fabric, almost too bright to look at. He contemplated putting it on, knowing it would alarm Howard enough to give him something to complain about: _looking at that jacket is like having a tropical bird take a dump in my eyes_. "Why don't you work on your novel?"

"I guess I could do." Howard picked up a pile of crumpled papers that was sat on the dresser. "But I don't have a type-writer."

Vince put aside the jacket and folded a tee-shirt until the creases were so sharp they might've cut him. The room was thick with the conversation they were both avoiding, and had been avoiding ever since the bartender had spoken to them. _I'm a really big fan of your show_. Vince closed his eyes. If only he'd just smiled and said "thanks." If only he hadn't said...

_What show?_

" _Vince's Electro Showcase_?" Howard suddenly said, with a snort of contempt. "I don't think this is my novel. Looks more like your work."

"Nah. I don't write." Vince abandoned the clothes and sat down on the bed, reaching for the bourbon. It was a far cry from a tasty flirtini, but he was getting used to the taste. Who'd written _Vince's Electro Showcase_? That Noel Fielding, he supposed. But he didn't want to think about him.

"What do you mean, you don't write?" Howard placed the crumpled papers back on the dresser. "What about Charlie?"

Vince shrugged, pulling the bottle from his mouth with a slurking sound. "That's in the past."

"You could take up the pen again."

"Nah." The alcohol burned at the inside of Vince's cheeks, pleasantly so. "Anyway, I only tried my hand at writing because you wanted to be a writer."

Howard sat down heavily on the end of the bed. "You did?"

Vince blinked, realising it was true. "Yeah."

"And the time you joined a band?"

"You said you were a multi-instrumentalist."

"Vince!" Howard snatched the bottle from his hands, looking annoyed. "Why do you have to always be what I am? That's what this whole 'we're dead' thing, isn't it? You want to be dead because I've been dead before."

Vince opened his mouth to argue, but instead opted for reluctant agreement. "Maybe. I don't really know anymore."

Howard played with the bottle, all the fight seeming to drain out him. "Yeah, me neither," he finally said, taking a long pull. "Vince?" he asked, his voice soft with the question.

"Yeah?" Vince leaned back on the pillows, pulling at the duvet with his bare toes.

"You've known me for a long time. In all that time... well, have I changed at all?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. Have I changed? Grown? Learned anything?"

Vince chuckled. "You haven't learned how to stay out of trouble. But don't worry, I think you've grown more wrinkles around your eyes."

"Do you mind? I'm asking you a serious, heart-to-heart question. Friend-to-friend, now. Tell me the truth." He made a bracing face. "I can take it."

Vince looked at his friend through half-lidded eyes, realising that he was indeed serious. He was biting at his lip, clearly stirring himself up over the possibility of Vince's response. "Not really," Vince finally said, his voice carefully measured. "You're always the same. You're always Howard."

Howard balled up his fist and hit the mattress. "Why? If you can change, I should be able to, too."

"Aw, Howard. What are you on about? I've never changed or grown or whatever. If anything, I've _un_ -grown."

"No you haven't," Howard said, looking him over balefully. "Your hair keeps getting better and better."

Vince tutted between his teeth. "That doesn't matter."

_What am I saying?_

"Like I said, it's a sign of whatsit... digression," he continued, quite cheerful. "My hair gets bigger and my clothes get flashier and my attitude gets snottier." He didn't add that he _liked_ his hair bigger and his clothes flashier. And his attitude snottier.

"And I get more pathetic," Howard said bitterly.

"Wot?" Vince sat up a little straighter, regarding Howard curiously. He'd heard plenty of people call Howard pathetic before, but he'd never heard that particular description from Howard himself. It was worrying, and Vince reaching his hand out and placed it over Howard's, not necessarily to comfort him, but to see that he was still there. That he was still _him_. The hand was big and calloused, rough along the knuckles. It was definitely Howard's hand. "You're not pathetic," Vince said. He was surprised at the seriousness of his own voice.

Howard gritted his teeth. " _He_ made me that way."

"Who?"

Howard glared. "You know who."

"Oh, come on, Howard." Vince squeezed his friend's fingers. "You don't really believe that what that bartender said is _real_ , do you?"

Howard snatched his hand away from Vince's. "You come on, Vince. What's more likely? That we're dead, or that we're the creation of two asshole comedians who've made a career out of taking the piss out of us?"

Vince stared at him, his mouth falling open. "What's more likely is that we're _dead_ ," he protested. "People die all the time. As opposed to realising that they're fictional. People realise that they're fictional very rarely, in fact. Point-zero-point-one-point-negative-zero percent of the time."

Howard shook his head. "That's what I mean. Dying's way too normal for us."

Vince pressed his lips together, unwilling to admit that Howard had a point. "Look," he said, delicately steering the subject back to safer territory. "You can change. I'll prove it."

"How?"

Vince stood up. "Come with me." He led Howard to the bathroom, ignoring his grunt of doubt, then pushed on his shoulders until he sat down on the closed lid of the toilet. "Stay," he said, as if addressing a frisky puppy. Then he zipped open the bag of makeup and toiletries that was on the sink, rummaging through its contents.

"Putting eyeliner on me doesn't prove anything," Howard said, watching him in the mirror.

"I'm not going to put anything on you," Vince said, pulling out a safety razor from the jumble of lotions and lipsticks. He held it up to the light and the blue steel blades twinkled ominously.

"Oh no," Howard said, covering his face. "No you don't."

"Don't be afraid of change, Howard."

Howard's eyes were wide over the mask of his hand. "You'll cut me."

"Nah. I've got a B-Tech National." Vince sat the razor on the edge of the counter and turned on the hot water, then found a small face towel and dunked it in the steamy surge. Once soaked, he wrung the towel out and presented it to Howard. "Put this on your face. The heat will soften your whiskers."

Howard scowled. "I don't want to soften my whiskers."

Vince leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, smiling lightly. "You don't want to change."

Howard regarded the dripping towel as if it were a particularly foul-tasting medicine, then sighed loudly. "Fine. I can always grow it back later." He tilted his head back and looped the towel around the lower portions of his face, his eyes blinking and fluttering against the rising steam.

"Yeah, if you have a couple of years," Vince said under his breath, trying to hide his grin as he picked up a can of shaving cream and shook it with vigour. He wondered if Howard was letting him do this because he thought Vince would prefer him sans mustache. Truth was, Vince liked Howard's mustache. He liked wondering what was beneath it. Having Howard bald-faced would be almost as much of a change for him as for Howard himself. Who had to look at Howard, day after day? Vince. And it would be strange to no longer catch himself wondering what Howard's top lip would look like without that half-hearted mocha stain hiding it.

For Vince, this was a bit like peaking at his Christmas presents before Christmas had even properly shown up.

"Okay," he said, gently uncoiling the towel from Howard's face. Beneath it, his flesh was pink. Vulnerable looking. Using a small pair of scissors, he barbered the mustache down until it looked sad and prepubescent. Shorn whiskers clung to Howard's lips, and Vince wiped them clean with the corner of the towel. In his deep concentration, he didn't notice how intently Howard was watching him, how hard it was for Howard to remain still and trust him. He painted the shaving cream on with his index finger, fussily so, and finally caught Howard's eye as he approached with the razor. "Don't worry," he said, his breath high and tinged with excitement. "It'll be over quick."

Howard nodded once, not even wincing as the razor scraped across his top lip, beheading each and every stubbly whisker in its path. It didn't take long, and when Vince wiped his face clean a second time, Howard felt the remarkable texture of the cloth against his bare skin.

"There."

Vince studied his own creation. It shouldn't have been _that_ much of a change, and yet it was. He didn't even know which change was bigger: Howard's naked face, or this new Howard who had let him razor his prized moustache clean off. Unable to help himself, Vince reached out and touched the smooth plain of Howard's upper lip, a strange and thrilling surge passing through him.

_I'm the first person to touch this skin._

"Let me see." Howard pushed Vince aside and leaned into the mirror, studying his reflection. "I look weird."

"You don't like it?"

"I'm not used to it."

Vince nodded. "That's how change works."

Howard smiled reluctantly at his reflection. "Hi there, I'm Howard Moon," he said, stretching out his hand as if to great his new self. Then he caught Vince watching him and his smile turned wicked. "You look pretty proud of yourself, little man."

Vince grinned and shrugged. "What can I say? I'm pretty good."

Howard retrieved the scissors from a puddle on the counter and held them up. "Let's see if I can't return the favour, shall we?" He turned around and took a step toward Vince, his eyes sparkling.

"What're you doin'?" Vince protested, backing up and into the toilet.

"Change, Vince. It's time for you to grow up, don't you think? Be a man instead of a lady?" He snipped playfully at the air as he spoke.

Vince covered his hair protectively. "No way! You're the one who wanted to change. I'm happy as is, thanks."

"If you don't evolve, you'll go the way of the platypus."

"So? Platypusses are cute little creatures, with their webby feet. Unique lookin', too."

"Platypi. The plural is platypi," Howard said, giving up the game and tossing the scissors aside. "So let's see what you'd look like with a mustache, instead." He found an eyelining pencil and uncapped it.

"Okay," Vince relented, holding himself still. Howard crouched down slightly and pressed the waxy tip of the pencil to his upper lip, his free hand cupping Vince's chin. He made a few flourishes that tickled, then pulled away and steered Vince toward the mirror. The drawn-on mustache was curly and jaunty, like an Edwardian dandy's.

"I look like the bearded woman in a turn-of-the-century freak show."

"It's very confusing," Howard said with approval. "Much like yourself."

Vince relaxed his shoulders. This was good. They could distract each other just by being themselves, by doing what they usually did. And they _were_ themselves. Julian and Noel were just... what had Howard called them? A pair of berks.

 _You want me to describe the show?_ Your _show? Okay, well, it's a bit surreal, innit? I mean, you have the zoo, that's a pretty mad place. Then there's the shaman. I never really understood why you needed a shaman at the zoo? That's part of the appeal, though, not really knowing why things are the way they are. Like how did two people as different as you two -- Howard and Vince, I mean -- become friends in the first place? It's sort of neat to wonder about those things when you're watching._

It was hard to be themselves, though, while trapped in a room that wasn't theirs, yet full of evidence of their lives. Their lives, as imagined by a pair of berks. Whoever Noel was, Vince thought he probably hated him. Noel could only _dream_ of being the one and only Vince Noir. Vince would have pitied Noel, if Noel weren't such an idiot.

_The Moon! The Moon's my favourite, hands down. But... oh? Vince and Howard? Er... they're just an odd couple, I guess. Everything seems to go right for Vince, even though he's thick as they come. Howard reminds me of guys who think they're too smart for uni or honest work, who go on the dole and read books all day, thinking they've got so much to offer. Thing is, they really don't, you know? Howard tries, though. It's funny to watch him try. Hey, I saw you do stand up once. Late 90s, I think?_

But Vince definitely hated Julian more.

_Is this for an article? Will my name be in print? 'Cos it's Ted Mitchell. M-I-T..._

Howard's elbow plied into Vince's side, and he stood up with a jolt, realising that he'd slumped into his friend, that he was slightly drunk on his feet. "Let's go somewhere," he said abruptly, blinking in the harsh bathroom lighting.

Howard frowned. "Not shopping."

"The shops are closed. Somewhere else. Somewhere with music."

"Not one of those clubs," Howard groaned. "People on the pull, strobe lights that make me want to vomit, watery drinks..."

"Okay, what about that band? The jazz one?" Vince tilted his head, trying to remember the name that Dave bloke had mentioned. "Polar Bear? They're supposed to be playing someplace. Off the Cuff? Blow the Fuzz?"

"Blow the Fuse."

"Yeah, that."

Howard leaned against the counter, reaching up to rub his face and balking when he found it bare and smooth. "It's jazz, though. You hate jazz."

Vince smiled. "I do hate it, but I've been thinkin' about a change, see."

"No, really," Howard said, unconvinced. "You hate jazz. It's... extinct. And useless."

Vince quirked an eyebrow, thinking it strange that Howard would apply such adjectives to his beloved be-bop. "Jazz is... was... be," he said, holding his chin out firmly.

Howard remained unmoved. "What about autograph hounds?"

"We're in disguise." Vince pointed to his drawn-on moustache. "We'll be jerks and ignore 'em. They'll post nasty complaints about Barratt and Fielding on the internet."

Howard smiled, liking that idea. But he liked the idea of a night of jazz even more.

"All right, get your boots on. We're going."

 

***

 

Even before he turned the lights on, Julian could tell something was off. It was the door, he thought. The door to the keeper's hut didn't open with the flimsy creak of a badly hung screen door. It opened smoothly this time, hinges oiled, door hung straight and proper. He groped along the wall for the switch plate, and the light clicked on, filling the room with warm, welcoming light.

"What the fuck?" he said, clutching his light mitten to his chest.

"What's wrong?" Noel came up behind him, his hand a question against his lower back.

The room had changed. Like Naboo's, it was decorated more like the series two set: nightmarish rorschach-blotch wallpapering, colourful sofa cushions, cartoonish art work. Here and there, completely nonessential but nevertheless significant objects were apparent. A pup tent was pitched in the middle of the room. A guitar that looked suspiciously like "Miranda" (which was in fact not a prop but one of Julian's own instruments) leaned against the wall.

Noel dropped his light mitten into a puddle on the floor and turned around in a circle. "Who do you suppose did it?" he asked, picking up a cushion and pulling at its fuzzy tassles.

"I've no fucking clue." Julian tossed his own light mitten -- whatever the hell _that_ < was -- on top of Noel's and sniffed the air suspiciously. "Maybe no one."

"What do you mean?"

"Things seem to be changing. Losing structure and logic, or something." Julian crossed his arms over his chest, chilled even though the room was warm. "Maybe we've been here too long."

"The place wasn't that logical to begin with," Noel said, plumping the cushion and arranging it amongst the others.

"I mean that it's deviating from the logic we built into it -- what little of it there was. Like entropy."

Noel made a face. "What the fuck is entropy? That's one of those words that people always use but they never know what it means."

Julian smiled. "You mean _you_  don't know what it means. Entropy is the inevitable deterioration of order in a system."

"Thanks. I think I preferred not knowing." Noel flopped on the sofa, his elbow painlessly thwaking the side of the tent.

Julian carefully circled the cluttered area, retrieving the guitar and studying it. The surface was shiny and unblemished, but it could have been his own, restored to mint condition. He plucked absently at the strings, the notes coming with the ease of one who's played for years and years, but they felt strange against his fingertips. Rough and biting. He studied his hands and saw that his hard-earned callouses were now non-existent. They were the hands of a virgin guitarist.

It was good that Noel was too busy burying his face in cushions just then, because the look on Julian's face likely surpassed the dim, hopeless horror that had over-taken it in those seconds before he threw himself out the ape salon window. His smooth skin was proof enough that what was happening to them was real -- or at least one hell of a vivid and detailed hallucination. To keep the horror from engulfing him and sending him over the edge, Julian strummed the guitar fiercely: a taut, no-nonsense rhythm that hurt his fingers and shook his own body. He closed his eyes and ignored the sparks of pain.

Noel tapped his palm against his knee, catching the rhythm. " _Waiting for the moon to rise. Waiting for the moon to rise..._ " He sang tentatively, testing the lyric out.

Julian joined in without hesitation, his voice stronger than Noel's. " _Waiting for the moon to rise.... would rather pour bleach in my eyes..._  "

" _Waiting for the moon to rise.... Bainbridge's pants are an extra-small size..._ "

" _Bainbridge's pants are made out of meat.... when the moon rises I'll stab it up a treat..._  "

" _The moon rapes the land with it's pointy chin...._  Hey, look, I found us some gin!"

Julian lifted his head and paused, mid-strum. Noel held up a bottle triumphantly, having dug it out from beneath the sofa cushions, where it had been hiding and poking his bum most rudely.

"Oh thank god," Julian said, throwing the guitar aside and scrambling around the tent. He sat down on the sofa and Noel handed him the bottle. He uncapped it and sniffed it, as if trying to detect a poison, then put it to his lips and took a cautious taste. It was predictably terrible. Straight gin, particularly cheap gin, had always tasted like perfume to him -- or what he imagined perfume to taste like. But it burned his tongue and seared a path down his throat, creating a warm pool in his belly, and that was enough. He would just pretend he was drinking a really, really bad martini.

Noel plied the bottle from his grip and took a gulp, shuddering with his whole body as it went down. "Foul," he winced.

Julian leaned back and tried to relax. It was difficult, though. With the tent pitched right in front of the sofa, there was no where to put his legs. Both he and Noel had their knees bent toward their chests, like children sitting 'round the rug during story-hour. "Let's go in the tent," he suggested, poking the side of it.

"Are you sure?" Noel asked. He sounded uncertain.

Julian shrugged. "There's no where else to lounge." He stood up and found the tent's circular opening, upzippering it and inspecting the inside. Their sleeping bags from that morning were laid out neatly, waiting for them. For Vince and Howard.

"Did you ever want to sleep in a tent in the middle of nowhere?" Noel enjoyed tangential questions with drinks.

"Middle of nowhere? Like where? Up North?" Julian kicked off his shoes and crawled into the tent. Shining through the blue nylon, the room's one lamp looked like twilight.

"No. Somewhere like Antarctica."

Julian folded his arms behind his head as Noel clambered in beside him, the gin sloshing in his grip. "Antarctica's melting, you know. The world's leading scientists once said that if Antarctica started melting, we were in real trouble." Julian swallowed, then continued. "Well, the Larsen B ice shelf slid right into the ocean. Just last year, I think. It's one of those things they never thought would happen."

Noel smirked. "You like that, do you? Collecting bleak bits of information and bringing them out just when the party starts."

Julian nodded, mock-solemn. "They fill my head like dryer lint. Anyway, no. I never really wanted to sleep in a tent in the middle of nowhere."

Noel's shoulders relaxed, and Julian wondered why this answer seemed to relieve him, somehow. He wordlessly held out his hand and Noel slipped the bottle of gin into it. A long stretch of minutes passed as they took turns drinking from the bottle, waiting for alcohol to soak their minds until there was no room left for all the things that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

"You know what's weird?" Noel shifted beside him, his words muffled as he spoke. "This is Howard's side. You're on Vince's."

Julian raised an eyebrow. "How can you tell?"

"The pillow smells like you."

Without even wanting to, Julian turned his head so that his nose was pressed against the pillow. He didn't want to sniff, but breathing made it involuntary. The scent that touched his nose was one that Julian could have described in words even if he'd tried, but it was undeniably Noel's.

"Where do you think they are?" Noel asked, his voice hushed and spooky.

"Who?"

"Vince and Howard."

"Stop," Julian whispered. "I don't want to think about it. And neither do you, not really."

But that was a lie. Where were Vince and Howard, really? Did they fail to exist in the Zooniverse once Noel and Julian had entered it? Were they sleeping in a kind of limbo? Were they being kept captive in the moonlight world by Dixon Bainbridge?

Or were they in London, where Noel and Julian were supposed to be.

 _Don't even think it, don't even think it, don't even think it,_  his mind chattered hysterically. He tried to quiet it with another drink of gin. Three, gulped in quick succession, did the trick.

"Hey... Ju?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

Julian hesitated. Noel didn't usually ask before he asked something. "Yeah," he said slowly.

"Tell me something I don't know about you."

It wasn't the sort of request he'd been prepared for, and Julian looked at Noel to see if he was serious. He was, his brows knitted over his eyebrows in a way that clarified his question even further: _tell me something about yourself that you normally wouldn't. Something that's true._

Julian rubbed his socked feet together. His legs were too long for the tent and his feet hung out the opening, resting on the hard floor. The air that touched them was cooler, not as thick with their shared breath.

Julian didn't know how to answer. Mostly, because he didn't know what Noel wanted to hear. Did he want to know that the first girl he'd kissed wasn't a twelve year old ginger-haired girl named Susan, but actually his eleven year old cousin Amelia, and how they'd kissed and kissed in the root cellar until he'd gotten an erection, and Amelia thought she'd made him sick and had run to tell their parents, but that up until that point Julian had thought himself as happy as he could possibly be. _This is it_ , he had thought. _I don't need to grow up after this. I don't need to live or die. I can just.._. and there his mind had cut off, too young to contemplate the moment further. Did he want to know that Julian often weighed all the possibilities of a situation to the point where any possible outcome seemed equally justifiable, and thus equally pointless. Should he get pissed tonight? No, he shouldn't. It was bad on the liver and hell on the crow's feet and he'd wake up in a misery. But then he often woke up in a misery, for some reason or another, and his crow's feet weren't going anywhere, so why not. Why not. Did he want to know that with the exception of his parents, Julian thought that the people who loved him were wrong in doing so. Did he want to hear about how he used to eat ice lollies as a kid with the ice in one hand, and a glass of warm water in the other. He'd break off a chuck of the sweet ice and let it melt into the roof of his mouth, the blinding pain building up behind his eyes until he thought he'd live with it for the rest of his life. Then, when he could take no more, he'd take a gulp of the warm water and allow himself the pleasure of basking in its relief. Julian could have told him any of these things, maybe, except he wasn't always aware of them himself. They were the sort of memories and qualities that came upon him unexpectedly, just before he fell in or out of sleep. Who knows a person better? The one living inside the body, or the one who watches it living?

So what he ended up saying was this: "You already know everything that I know about myself, Noel." Then he followed it with another sour drink of the gin.

Noel let out a nervy laugh. "That can't be true."

Julian didn't smile. "Go ahead. Tell me something about myself. Something that you know."

"Um..." Noel shifted on his sleeping bag, clearly uncomfortable with the boon he'd been given. "Okay. But... don't get cross over any of it, all right?"

"All right."

"Okay," Noel repeated, removing the gin from Julian's hand and taking a fortifying drink. "You... the oddest thing about you is that you think you're better than everyone else, but it seems like you don't think very highly of yourself, either. It's like you're a critic, but you include yourself in all your harshest judgments."

Julian was silent. He couldn't argue with any of that.

Noel sighed and continued. "The best thing about being your friend is knowing that I've made the cut. The worst thing is worrying that someday, I'll fall short." He laughed again, though mirthlessly. "You know, I just keep waiting to wake up one day to find that all my tricks don't work anymore and that you've gotten bored of me."

Now Julian was surprised. He turned to regard his friend though glazed vision, his cruel words from earlier that day returning to him: _you're terrified of being ordinary_. And so he was. But it wasn't just the shadow of Vince Noir that Noel had to live in... it was Julian's, as well? But how could that be? "How can my opinion really matter so much, eh?" he asked, trying to keep the question good natured as he ribbed Noel with his elbow.

"Because it does," Noel said. It was the maddeningly simple sort of answer that a child would give. And the look he was giving Julian... guileless was the adjective that came to mind. His eyes looked too big for his face, like they wanted to devour everything they lit upon. And right now, they were lit upon Julian.

_You're wrong for doing so._

Julian closed his eyes and took another drink, the gin going down so much like water that he knew he'd already had way too much.

"Ju?"

He looked at Noel through slitted eyes and saw that his friend's face was alarmingly close, a smutch of dirt on his cheek bone standing out in painful relief against his pasty skin, the tips of his teeth worrying his bottom lip in hesitation. The look in his eyes was one Julian had seen before, many times. When was the first? Maybe when he'd first been invited up to Noel's flat. _You can come in, but you can never leave._  Or was it on stage, Noel's face shadowed by a furry parka as he issued out lines in a voice that was lower and more commanding than his own? Or had it been on a drunken night. That one drunken night, in particular, when he'd passed out on Noel's floor and had woken up in the dark, a hot hand kneading his thigh as Noel thrashed quietly beside him, his strangled breath leaving no doubt of what he was doing to himself beneath the cushion he had crammed over his lap. Julian had never let on that he'd woken up, and later only remembered it on those occasions when Noel's stage kiss threatened to turn into something more real, his Old Gregg makeup somehow giving him the same courage as a night of heavy alcohol. But even then, Julian had convinced himself it was just the intoxication of the crowd and their whooping cheers, their insinuating wolf-whistles.

_Wrong for doing so._

"Noel. Don't."

Noel sucked in his breath and pulled away slightly. The tent creaked. "Don't what?" He laughed without air, without innocence. Despite his child-like qualities, he was a man, after all. Just as prone to manipulation as anyone else. "I'm not doing nothing."

"Don't worry." Julian blinked. These weren't the words he thought he would say. "Don't worry that I'll get bored."

Noel laughed again, nervously, but seemed lost for words. Through the gin-haze, he suddenly struck Julian as funny. "Don't worry," he said again, ruffling Noel's hair as if he were a tot. That single, fatherly gestured punctured the tension in the air. A cool draft swept in through the tent opening and whisked the humid air out. Noel smiled, but it was tinged with disappointment.

Julian could have guessed why, but he didn't want to. Not just then. _Wait_ , his mind said to Noel. _I'm not ready_.

He closed his eyes. The gin had wrapped him in a thick, soporific haze.

"Don't sleep." Noel's breath was a warm puff on his face. "We're waiting for the moon to rise."

Julian smiled. Noel's words sounded like the beginning of a song. "Someday I will be," he slurred, rolling over on to his side and sinking into sleep.

Noel watched his friend's breath even out.

"Someday you'll be what?" he asked softly. But there was no answer.

 

***

 

_Here, it's always twilight. Between one thing and another._

_You lay flat on your back, sleep just out of reach. The gin hasn't made you as drunk as you would like. You're too taut, wired like an instrument that's eager to be played. Beside you, he's swaddled in sleep, snores shaking the tent walls like an arctic wind._

_You watch him, but not too closely. You wish there were some part of him that you could spill all your secrets to, unafraid, but even his sleeping self has his back turned to you._

_To pass the time, you try to identify each animal by the noises you hear outside. A hoot, a howl, a strange, alien chitter. But you don't know anything about animals. You'd recognise a dog, maybe. That's about it._

_And suddenly, there's no noise at all. Even his snores are gone, cut off as if he's stopped breathing alltogether._

_You look. He's on his back, his eyes wide open and aware. Afraid, even. All traces of drunkeness are gone, as if wiped clean from a blackboard._

_You furrow your brow. Something's changed. Something big. He holds his body differently: ramrod straight instead of the loose slouch that you've come to know. He blinks far too much._

_He looks at you, and you know him at last._

"Howard?" 

_Your question makes the possibility real. It always has._

***

 


	5. part five

 

  
**A Journey Through Time and Space**

***

part five

Later, when he tried to remember how, exactly, he'd known that something was different, he would put it down to the snores.

Julian snored. Light puffs of air that came from between his lips almost delicately -- certainly too delicate for someone over six feet tall who favoured scruffy facial hair -- occasionally interrupted by a deeper rumble that Noel could feel as well as hear. Listening to them gurgle from his chest, Noel had to fight the urge to press his ear to Julian's turned back, and forced himself to lie still. When he was much younger, he had mistaken his Dad's snores for some kind of mysterious sleep language, the secrets of the dreaming mind being funneled through the body in consonants that had no form or sense but were truer than anything that came from the tongue. It was a mistaken belief he kept as an adult. A belief he chose to keep, because he also believed that the mind he'd had as a child was as close to the real him as he would ever get.

And because he wouldn't have hesitated then, as a tot in his striped pyjamas, he went ahead and placed his head near -- but not quite against -- the huffing rise-and-fall of Julian's back, its rhythm something he wanted to curl up in.

But then the snores had stopped. Abruptly, almost as if Julian breath had been cut off completely. Noel jerked upwards so hard that it hurt, feeling as if he'd been caught in the act of something shameful and embarrassing, like sniffing someone's freshly shed underthings.

Everything changed after that.

 

***

_Howard?_

The word seemed to echo in the tent, or maybe just inside the coils of Noel's own ears. Hearing it aloud, Noel realised that it didn't sound very bright. Like saying "tomato" for not good reason. Like saying it just to make sure his voice was still his own.

"Julian," he said quickly, as if it would muffle his previous utterance out of the air. "I meant Julian."

The man that he hoped was Julian shifted, flexing his fingers as if in effort to urge feeling back into them. A croaking sound rumbled in the back of his throat.

"Vince?" he finally said, and the old cannon ball -- almost as familiar as an extra, burdensome organ by now -- sprang to life in Noel's gut, weighty with dread. Then the man sat up. Without thinking, Noel flung out a hand -- to seek out the support of a wall, maybe -- but it only slid against the nylon fabric of the tent uselessly. In this moment (and the moment felt like _a moment_ , like a physical object, a photograph perhaps, that he was regarding from a safe distance, if only to keep from descending into a feverish panic), even though it was absurd, Noel hoped that this was just Julian talking -- and _sitting_ , yes -- in his sleep. That his subconscious was all tangled up in the confusion of the day's events. If only his eyes weren't so alert, Noel might've been able to believe it. Not just alert, but awake in a way Julian's rarely were in private, so often lidded at half-mast with what looked like a very faint show of interest. They looked Noel over beadily.

"Vince?" the man repeated, and in doing so, he became Howard to Noel. The transformation was not accompanied by another melon in Noel's belly, or a jolt of panicky adrenaline. Certainly he felt nothing on the level of shock he'd experienced when he'd seen Julian's sprawled in the mud at the base of the ape salon. He simply heard a strange whistling noise and realised it was the sound of his own breath, unspooling in a long-held sigh. _You are here, this is happening to you._

"Vince?"

When Noel finally spoke, it was in a voice that he hoped Howard would recognise. "Yeah?" he said, barely above a whisper. He saw Howard cock his head in response.

"What happened?"

"You... " Noel broke off, because the words were all jammed up at the back of his throat. He could taste them behind his teeth, waiting to take shape.

 _Stop thinking. Stop_ thinking _. You couldn't rationalise your way out of a paper sack on a good day, so why are you trying now? Improvise. You've been doing it for years. Do it. Do it now._

"You don't remember?" he finally said, letting his voice slip into a kind of smile.

"Yeah? Kind of?" Howard rubbed at his temple. "Did I pass out? What happened to the band?"

"The band?" This said with veiled caution.

"Yeah. Blow the... hey." Howard poked at the tent's ceiling with a finger. "What's this about? Where'm I at?"

"Where?" So far, Noel was getting by on parroting Howard's last words at him, but he figured he'd have to string together a complete sentence here soon.

"This is my tent, isn't it? Where'd you find it? I haven't seen it since that useless trip to the Arctic."

The silence following Howard's question stretched to a breaking point. Then, to his own horror, Noel let out the tiniest of giggles. The idea that Howard was real, that he actually thought he'd been to the Arctic... it seemed not just impossible, but hilariously so. None of the day's previous incongruities could even compare. Noel was torn between wanting to groan and wanting to pelt Howard with a barrage of ridiculous questions, just because he could. What _was_ that deformity on Howard's chest? He and Julian had never decided, having once argued over it being a third, saucer-sized nipple or a tiny set of extra testicles, hung just beneath Howard's armpit. But neither groaning nor interrogating seemed an option when considering the larger problem at hand: _if Howard was here, where the fuck was Julian?_

"What is it?" Howard asked. "What are you doing there, all twitchy like a high-stepping horse?"

"Nothing," Noel said, hitching his breath and making a sound that might, by a generous listener, be described as something like a bark.

Howard shifted and came closer, his face suddenly and alarmingly more visible in the dim light.

Oh god, _his face_.

Earlier than morning, Noel had met a version of his brother crowned with stiff hair and garbed in flowy blue taffeta, and had seen no echo of Mike -- nothing beyond what Noel himself might have imagined there, anyway. But now, the crinkles around Howard's eyes and the uncertain quirk of his lip, the very way he held his shoulders, everything about him was like something Julian might have drawn and shaped with his own two hands: a landscape of exaggerations that, like all good caricatures, held a recognisable amount of truth. Unable to speak, Noel sat back on his knees and studied Howard with the intensity of one watching a brilliant and riveting performance. At the same time, he felt himself being sized up, and knew at once that Howard would know he was in the tent with an imposter.

"Vince? What are you staring at?" Howard snapped his fingers in front of Noel's face. "Did you get into the expired cough syrup again?"

Apparently, Noel had over-estimated Howard's eye for details.

"No." Noel reached out and stopped Howard from snapping again, anticipating the other man's movements before they came. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Howard gave Noel a wary look. "Waiting for you to come back with the drinks."

"Okay, okay. Drinks where?"

"What do you mean, where? That Blow the Fuse gig. We were just there, watching Polar Bear?" Howard looked around the tent again, clearly not expecting an answer. "Did I sink like a lead weight into some kind of jazz coma? How'd we end up back in the Arctic? Oh... maybe it's because we were watching _Polar Bear_!"

"Polar Bear?" Another question, another mechanical repetition of Howard's words. Noel was beginning to feel as thick and slow as a mouthful of frozen toffee, and not for lack of thinking, either -- the synapses in his brain were firing with such fury that he felt dazed by their activity. He distinctly remembered that Polar Bear were a band that Julian was partial to, but how would Howard have known about that?

"Oh no," Howard sighed, as if suddenly resigned. "It's all gone wrong again, has it? The jazz carried us away, both of us, me willing and you kicking and screaming like a petulant mule. A be-bop slingshot through the musical ether." Howard paused and ran his hands over his arms, shivering in a way that looked forced. "Back to the Arctic, no less. It's so cold, Vince. We'd best start a fire. We may need to use your shirt as kindling."

Noel stared, his face pinching up with uncertainty. "It's not cold at all. If I sweat any more I'll have to wring my shirt out."

Howard paused in mid-shiver. "There's a draught, Vince," he said with an air of snooty certainty. "A distinct, icy draught."

Without meaning to, Noel rolled his eyes. "Coming from where? The mini-fridge?" He unzipped the tent with a flourish, displaying the innocuous interior of the hut just beyond.

Howard poked his head through the tent opening, the nylon rustling as he turned his head this way and that. "What's all this, Vince? Why's the flat so much smaller? Or wait... what's this? Is this our hut back at the zoo? What's this about?"

Noel was beginning to tire of Howard calling him "Vince" every time he spoke. It made him nervous. Was it possible he was Vince and didn't know it? No, no, no, he couldn't be Vince. Vince was the sort of person who would never question his Vince-ness. Still, the very suggestion was enough to make Noel's stomach drop, infusing him with a sense of vertigo all over.

"It's the hut, but it's been made to look like the flat," he said flatly, which was the most honest answer he could think to give.

Howard struggled out of the tent, muttering words Noel couldn't make out. He heard the floorboards creak as Howard walked around, and knew that joining the other man was the right thing to do, reluctant as he was to leave the bubble of the tent, still warm with Julian's familiar presence. When he emerged, he found Howard staring at the kitchen table, looking as if he had expected a feast and had found nothing but crumbs.

"Where's my typewriter, Vince?"

"Uh?" It was a singular, questioning noise.

"And my records? You didn't stack them up and use them as a stepladder to reach the top shelf of your wardrobe again, did you?"

"No, I haven't touched anything," Noel said, more or less truthfully.

Howard knitted his brow. "This from the man who insists on touching _everything_."

Noel's mouth fell open. "I haven't touched anything," he finally repeated.

"Why's _my_ stuff gone," Howard complained, oblivious to Noel's state. "Your stuff is everywhere. Look at that shoe rack, it's straining like a dowager who's working on her second hump."

Unsteady on his feet, Noel ignored Howard, pulled out a chair from the kitchen table, and sat himself down. At the same time, he felt something in the back pocket of his trousers crumple in protest. He removed it absently and saw that while dog-eared and creased by now, it was the photograph he'd pulled out of Rudi's door of Kukundu. Staring at it, Noel tried to remember its significance, which had seemed so evident to him just a few hours ago. It was just him and Julian at a signing, pausing to smile for any number of fans, but it was _him_ and _Julian_. Somehow, that seemed the only significant thing about it, and Noel turned it face-down and pressed it against the top of his leg.

"Vince!" Howard snapped, piercing Noel's reverie. "Did you use my records as plates again? Spaghetti sauce is deadly to vinyl, you know."

"What?" Noel jerked his head up, distracted. Howard was pacing the small kitchenette, looking everything over like a manor's mistress checking for dust. His eye for details clearly improved when it came to those intricacies that affected him personally.

"My records, my typewriter... have you been moving my stuff around again, to make room for yours?" To emphasise his point, Howard sighed much louder than was necessary.

Noel stared, slightly dazed by this accusation. A keen sense of deja vu nagged at him as well; in some of their writing sessions together, Noel and Julian had shared a laugh over Howard's annoying tendency to blame others -- Vince, in particular -- for all the trials in his life. Blame that Vince usually shrugged off and took gamely, accepting it as he did Howard's other flaws.

But Noel wasn't Vince. After the day he'd been through, he didn't especially enjoy being badgered about and blamed for trivial things like where the typewriter had gone off to. What was Howard planning to do with it, anyway? Take a couple of hours to pound out a word or three? "Look," Noel began, a bite in his voice. "I didn't move your things --"

"Those were priceless first-pressings, Vince. Charles Mingus, not a scratch on it, and another one that --"

"Be quiet!" Noel demanded, hoping to his feet and sending the table into a wobble. "Everything's fucked, and here you are moaning on about old Charles Mingus!"

Howard drew back only slightly, as if Noel's outburst were a tiny roadblock in the middle of a long thoroughfare he was intent on plowing through. "What do you mean, everything's fu..fu..." He balked strangely at the word _fucked_. "Everything's shiny for you, isn't it? Got your feather boas over there, got the hut splashed out in the season's latest electro-vomit colours..."

Noel closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe evenly. "Seriously. _Be quiet_."

Howard's mouth dropped open, then shut quickly as he sank into the other chair. Noel watched this show of obedience with a mixture of irritation and relief. "Stay here," he said, as if addressing an ill-behaved pet. "I'll be back soon."

With these words, he slipped out the front door and, like a man who'd been trapped underwater, took in a huge gulp of air and leaned unsteadily against a knobby tree trunk. The wild racing of his heart filled his ears so completely that he didn't notice how deadly silent the Zooniverse was -- the type of silence that had weight and volume, and he shifted against the tree as if burdened by its load. He tried to think, but right now thinking was like running in a dream, like working through sand that clung to his boots and fought to pull him under. He told himself he wasn't afraid of being alone, but his body, trembling as it was, knew damn well he was a liar.

So he stood there, forcing himself to get used to the idea. Bent at the waist, he planted his hands against his thighs and gasped like a long distance runner until his breathing slowed and his stomach unclenched and he could open his eyes and look up. There was still no moon.

He was supposed to wait for the moon to rise. He and Julian had sang about it. Things would be okay, if only the moon would rise.

He tried to will it to rise. He tried to will it like this:

He pictured it balanced on the end of his giant, god-like finger, then sliding up against the black night like an eye blinking open, the white gaze passing over him like some kind of blessing.

It didn't work, of course, but the mental image calmed him. It was easier to view the world as a panorama of layers, like backdrops on a stage that could be re-arranged with the single tug of a pulley. It had always been his way to picture both himself and his surroundings as a collage he could paper over if he wanted to, changing the colours and textures as he went, ripping them apart and feeding them to the wind in his wake. Everything was surface, and he skimmed over the surface of everything.

And it wasn't shallow because it was wide, wider than any eyes could see. Wider than the stretch of his arms.

_But your arms only stretch a few feet in either direction, Noel._

But they didn't _feel_ like they only stretched a few feet in either direction. They felt like they stretched to span the universe itself. What did it matter that they didn't, so long as the feeling was there? Who ever said that a camel couldn't pass through the eye of a needle, or that the moon wasn't just a man? Not counting scientists, of course, those fucking modern day assassins of imagination and lore.

"Vince?"

The word was so close to Noel's ear that it might have come from his own head. His thoughts rippled apart and his vision cleared. Howard had left the hut and come up behind him, breath milky on Noel's shoulder. Pivoting around, Noel saw that he looked oddly lost as he wrung his hands together and shifted from one foot to another.

"What're you doing?" Howard asked, a little cautious. Maybe because Noel had given him a very non-Vince-ish direct order to stay put -- an order than Howard had promptly disobeyed.

"Thinking."

Howard squirmed. "What for? Why?"

Noel sighed. "Because I do that sometimes. When I'm alone my mind cogs start twirling. It just sort of ends up that way without my trying."

Howard looked unexpectedly relieved by these words. "Ah, so we're back to this again, are we? You were out here alone, and without me to talk to you had no choice but to think."

Sizing the other man up, Noel noticed that the light, easterly wind blew Howard's hair in the exact opposite direction of how Julian usually combed it, not that he was overly fussed with combs to begin with. But watching the hair rebel against all those good intentions filled Noel with an urge to pat it down into place.

"Is that what you think?" Noel finally said, distracted by the wayward hair. Looking at it, he discovered that when he avoided direct eye contact, Howard was like a merry puppet exiled to the furthest corners of his eyesight, his lips and eyebrows twitching in exaggeration, nothing more than a pair of hyperbole caterpillars. The puppet threw back its head with a proud snort and Noel stifled a caustic laugh.

"Of course I think, Vince. We all think, but some of us _really_ think."

It couldn't be helped. The laugh popped out of Noel's mouth like a blown cork. It overtook him in a wave of spasms, laughter that was more like strange, hollow howling than a noise of true mirth.

"Vince?" Howard stared, perplexed at first, then clearly affronted. "Vince!"

Noel slumped against the tree trunk and looked at Howard's flabbergasted expression through watery eyes, giggles still rioting around his belly. "Oh god. Oh," -- another gasp -- "you're such a _joke_. You're more like Howard than he is!" He laughed again, his stomach aching from it. "You're really him! You're really, really him."

Howard took a step away from Noel. "You've gone wrong, little man. It's too much in one day, is it? All those lunatic fans, then my top strop in Top Shop. Not to mention Naboo's peculiar new haircut -- should have known you'd take that one to heart."

Noel wheezed and hiccupped, all the laughter wrung out of him, but he bent over silently and pointed. "See! That's exactly what I'm on about! Howard Moon!"

"Why'd you keep saying my name like that, Vince?" Howard asked, eyes narrowing.

" _Vince_ ," Noel emphasised, straightening up. "Electro goth fairy. Sure, I can do that for you." He smiled widely and felt the cracks in his sanity widen. It was weird, to actually feel yourself going mad. Or was this just a foolish hope for madness? The hope that it would make all of this arbitrary? "Let's go... oh, let's listen to some Gary Numan. What do you reckon?"

"I reckon I've got no choice, seeing as my own fine and upstanding collection of music has up and vanished."

"How 'bout some Human League," Noel said, looking at Howard hard and keeping the question out of his voice. "Don't you want me baby? Don't you want me, oh?" The words were curiously flat when they were spoken rather than sung.

Howard gave Noel a look that was shadowed with mistrust. He took in a breath and held it, seeming to wrestle over what to say next. "You were right before," he finally burst out. "You never change." Then he turned on his heel and disappeared into the hut.

Noel didn't move for several moments, mildly stunned by Howard's words, which perplexed him more than anything else. He was all at once aware of how quiet it was now that Howard had left his side. A faint, scuttling sound came from down low, near the ground. He squinted in the dim light and ducked his head slightly, spying a movement from beneath some shrubbery. A whip-thin pink tail twitched once, and the face of an opossum poked out from between the leaves, its pointy teeth forming a cheshire-cat grin.

 _Moving on_ , it whispered. Or at least that's what Noel thought it said. The tail twitched again and the opossum was gone.

"Go then," Noel said, straightening up. Then, louder: "That's right, go!" Without thinking, he struck out at the nearest tree with his fist. He didn't possess a mean right hook by any stretch of the imagination, but the tree was very real and very hard, and its bark shredded his knuckles and set them smarting. The sheer stupidity of what'd he'd done propelled him to punch the tree again, lamely this time, and without any real fury behind it. His fist was already wounded, though, and he yelped in pain and brought his bleeding digits to his mouth.

 _I knew you would go. I fucking_ knew _it._

The thought filled him with a hazy, incomprehensible rage. He kicked blindly at the shrub that the opossum had ducked into, braches swishing and scratching at the fabric of his jeans, leaves flinging upward. He grunted and heard himself yell words that didn't register in his mind, too caught up in the satisfaction of lashing out at nothing.

_OW!_

The cry was distinct and familiar. Startled, Noel pulled in his kick at the last minute and lost his balance, tumbling backwards into the wood chips, his arse aching. A writhing, whip of a creature scurried over his torso, flashing from bright green to vermillion red.

_You brutalised my tail! Again!_

The chameleon dug her claws into the middle of Noel's chest and he winced, struggling to sit up. "Oof. What's that?" He pushed his fringe off his sweaty forehead and looked the creature over. "Uh... Jenny?"

 _Yes, that's right._ Jenny seemed to blush with faint pink pleasure -- or perhaps lingering annoyance -- as she regarded him with her rolling eyes. _Why were you kicking the vegetation, Vince?_

"Oh." Noel sat up and Jenny scrambled up to his shoulder, her tail curling around the back of his neck in what seemed like a friendly, open gesture. "Having a tantrum, I reckon." He sighed. It wasn't as if he could explain his situation to the chameleon -- like Howard, she thought he was Vince. Without Julian around to remind him he wasn't, he might as well _be_ Vince.

But he didn't want to be. Right now, he longed to be understood more than he longed to be loved. Where was Julian?

 _Change is hard_ , Jenny said, patting the back of his neck with her tail. It was an odd thing for the creature to say -- odd that the creature was talking at all, though Noel tried not to dwell on that. Howard's peculiar words came back to him: _you never change_.

"Yeah," he said weakly, dragging the heels of his boots through the wood chips and dirt. He had no idea how to share his problems with a reptile, not even one that he could, quite literally, take to. "What brings you out here, Jenny? Your boudoir ain't infested with bats again, is it?"

_No. They've moved on._

Noel tilted his head, trying to catch her eye. "What do you mean, moved on?" The opossum had said the exact same thing.

 _Change is hard,_ she repeated obscurely, seeming to avoid his question. _But it's easier for us._ Out of the corner of his vision, Noel saw her shift colours until she matched the loud orange-and-pink pattern of his tee-shirt.

"Yeah," Noel mused, lifting his eyebrows. "Guess it would be, with make-over skills like yours."

 _Make-over skills?_ Her tone was offended. _We have the ability to adapt to our environment completely... or to stand out, if we need to. It's far more involved than a mere makeover._ And with that, her rough skin shimmered with bright blue and yellow streaks that clashed against the fabric of Noel's tee-shirt.

"Yeah, that's really something." And it was. It was something to talk about, something to distract him from the more pressing crisis at hand. "What's your regular colour, though? When you're not changing, I mean? Green, I suppose."

Jenny's eyes rotated in agitated circles. _Our outer skin is transparent. Better to show the world what lies beneath, hmm? You should know._

Noel's lips curled into a half-smirk. "Why? 'Cos I'm a zookeeper?"

_Because you're one of us._

The half-smirk fell from his face with a twitch.

_And it's time to say goodbye._

"Goodbye... to what?" His voice was flat, too fatigued to bother with disbelief.

Jenny vibrated slightly with something that might have been laughter. Her tail tangled through his hair as she crept closer, close enough to whisper the truth in his ear.

 

***

_There's a difference between pulling away and simply hoping you won't have to make the first move._

_The telephone is like a chunk of cold marble against the side of his face -- this is before the era of tiny, sweaty mobiles -- and as soon as Noel's voice comes down the other end he wants to hang up. But that's the sort of thing you do to ex-girlfriends. That's creepy, borderline-stalker behaviour._

Hello?

Oh, those shakes. The lights don't really block the audience from view, not the way they say it does. He can always make out the faces in the first few rows, the movement of mouths and the position of hands. Some of the smiles fade too quickly, it seems. Julian is one who laughs hard on the inside, but he wishes other people would just let it out.

...Hello?

He wants to run, like he has before. Boy, does he. He grips the phone in his hand, then shifts it from one ear to the other. He clears his throat, and this -- just this -- is enough to give him away.

Julian?

_His throat goes dry and something like sand sweeps through his mind, filling the cracks, blotting out indecision._

Wa-wanna be in my gang? I mean... hi, Noel. Yes, this is Julian.

 

***

Behind his eyelids were hazy colours, and a wild, distant drum solo rattled the staccato of his heart. His mind was still caught up in a dream of vast snowfields: he'd been curled on his side in a drift, waiting and hoping for some strange, nearby warmth to slip around him. The warmth was person-shaped and familiar; not his Mum or his Dad or his lover but someone who knew him just as well. He had been waiting for the arms to pull him close and keep him from succumbing to the cold, to the dreary, absolute silence. He had waited, yes, but he hadn't said a word. Certainly nothing like _come closer_. He hadn't even dared to show anything other than the sturdy landscape of his turned back.

_Someday, I will be. Someday, I will..._

What was that? The foggy, dream-like snippets faded away, driven off by a sudden flare of trumpet. The weights on top of his eyelids disappeared and his eyes popped open, immediately assaulted by stage lights and choking cigarette smoke. People moved back and forth, calling out to one another, bopping in time on their heels. Their drinks sloshed and their teeth flashed. Not a single one of them looked familiar, but he couldn't tell if that was because they were strangers or if it was because he was utterly fucked in the head. He felt drugged, dazed, and drunk -- the three evil Ds -- and it took a great deal of effort just to lift his body from the table he was slumped against. His mind fought against this bodily stupor, aware that something vital in his surroundings had changed. He blinked hard against dizziness, hands scrabbling over the tabletop and knocking over an empty bottle.

A figure on wobbly, coltish legs approached him, a drink in each hand. It was Noel, zipped into that hideous KISS jacket that he so highly prized -- aside from the uniqueness of the jacket, Julian would have known that drunken gait anywhere. He was smiling that blatantly flirtatious grin he used on the camera sometimes, his eyes all hooded and bedroomy, his upper lip smudged with something blackish. "Drinksssss," he said, sliding a glass across the table so hard that it nearly landed in Julian's lap.

Addle-brained, Julian pushed the glass away and pressed a thumb to each temple. What the merry fuck was going on? Hadn't he just been sleeping in a snowfield? In a tent, a tent in a snowfield? And it had been warm... But now he was in a club, and there was a band on stage playing familiar music.

He lifted his head and a red light passed over his eyes. In its brilliant wake, all the memories from the last fifteen hours came back with thundering whiplash. A limitless horizon yawned in the back of his mind, blurring at the edges like a watercolour painting, then he felt himself falling, falling, falling, branches groping for his clothes as he went. He bent over and made an agonised noise.

"Noel..." he groaned, and Noel furrowed his brows together. His mouth parted and the white tips of his teeth showed.

"Who?"

Dazed, Julian reached out and pulled at the cuff of Noel's jacket. "Cigarette," he said. "Find me a cigarette, will you?"

"Huh?!" Noel looked stricken at the very request.

"Just get me a cigarette, please!" Julian barked desperately, finding his drink and taking a gulp. It was scotch, neat, and it definitely did not bring about the clarity he was hoping for. He heard Noel push through people, asking prettily for spare cigarettes. Whatever had happened, it seemed not to have affected him in the least, and Julian felt a kind of faint gnawing in his gut, a sense that everything was more wrong than he could possibly know.

Another drink of scotch and closing his eyes did nothing to bring back the vast white, the security of warm arms anchored at his waist that weren’t anchors at all.

Then there was Noel’s hand, thrust out and clutching a foil packet of off-brand cigarettes, three survivors at the bottom. He’d filched a cheap lighter from someone as well, and passed over one of the cigarettes with a peculiar, conspiratorial giggle. Julian didn’t acknowledge it, instead lunging for a cigarette and placing it between his lips. Then he bristled.

_What in fucking hell?_

The alien sensation of smooth skin was sinister against his fingertips, his mouth and chin obscenely naked and shorn of whiskers. Where the fuck was his mustache? His ever-present evening stubble? Distracted by its absence, he didn’t notice how Noel handled the lighter as if it were a slippery minnow in danger of leaping from his fingers. Fiddling with it, he finally exerted enough pressure to bring a spark to life, so bright and surprising that he immediately dropped the lighter to the sticky tabletop, then dove for it again.

Julian covered his mouth with the palm of his hand and gazed at the unlit cigarette as if it were responsible for all this, then he looked up just in time to see Noel light the one clamped between his own teeth. All his thoughts ran to a trickle as he watched, the hairs on the back of his arms rising up just slightly, as they often did whenever Noel did something that was worth watching. But there was something different, this time.

Noel inhaled a luxurious breath, one that sent his back arching, then sucked in a mouthful of smoke that immediately contorted his face into something like horrified disgust. He coughed hugely, his eyes streaming water. Julian’s own need for nicotine was forgotten as dull dread filled him.

“Noel?” The question was lame, half-hearted, and the other man was coughing too hard to have heard, anyway.

Julian had seen Noel light up cigarettes -- _more_ than just cigarettes -- hundreds of times before. Noel even knew how to fold a match head over the edge of a book and ignite it with a careless snap of his fingers, a one-handed party trick that never failed to attract exclamation and attention. He tended to exhale smoke as if it had been piped into his mother’s womb, head thrown back in a showy fashion despite off and on bouts with asthma. It sometimes seemed that there was nothing Noel did that wasn’t for show, and Julian wasn’t even sure if his friend liked cigarettes or if he merely liked the way he looked with one propped between his pursed lips. It could have been vanity, but Noel seemed to like how he looked in green face paint as well, not to mention his penchant for deforming the already sharp angles of his face to dramatic proportions. It wasn’t necessarily a need to be seen as beautiful, then – just a need to be _seen_... as grotesque and flawed, and yet perfect in his ownership of both.

Still, Noel never, ever coughed. Not like this.

Julian patted him on the back uncertainly. The other man felt real enough. Warm and slight. It was almost impossible to think of him as a phantasm, here in this ordinary, smoky pub -- one that Julian was fairly certain that he and Noel had been in before. Together.

“Vince,” he said, resigned to the truth.

“Yeah?” Vince struggled out between coughs. "Sorry."

“Come along with me to the gents’?” Julian jerked his head in the general direction of the toilets. His head was filled with cold, razor-sharp certainty. He knew what he had to do, even while he had no real _idea_ of what that was. It was a detached sort of instinct guiding him, or maybe he was just too laden with liquor to wonder very hard at his own actions.

Vince rolled his eyes -- a gesture so predictable it made Julian smile in a grim sort of way. “Aw, what for?” Vince protested. “No one’s going to come on to you here, and even if someone did you’d be able to outrun ‘em.” His nose wrinkled delicately as he surveyed the other patrons. “This crowd’s a bit long in the tooth. And probably gimpy in the leg, going by that dancing.”

“Just come along.” Julian’s hand clamped around Vince’s wrist, leaving no room for argument.

Vince met his eyes in silent question. The slight flicker of worry that came over his features almost impressed Julian. He wouldn’t have characterised Vince as insightful or quick on his mental feet, but perhaps his day spent in reality (had he only been here a day? Was one day in the Zooniverse equal to one day in the universe?) had made him more wary, hardening his candy-floss exterior. "All right, Howard," he said lightly. "No need to prise my arm off, yeah?"

Julian winced at the name. Vince saw the wince and frowned.

"Come along." The words were gruff as Julian rose to his aching feet, walking blindly to the toilets with his head hung downward. He did not want to see anyone he knew. He could not, he mustn't.

The toilets were decorated in a fashionably sparse way, but the lighting was yellow and unhealthy. A single man was stood at a urinal, smoking and pissing at the same time. He squinted at them, seeming to sense that neither had come in to take a piss of their own, and soon left without shaking off or washing his hands.

"You have to leave," Julian said abruptly, before the door had even shut completely.

"Leave where?" Vince was avoiding his gaze, looking in the mirror instead.

"You know you don't belong here."

In the glass, Vince looked at him askance. "What're you on about, Howard?"

Julian raised his hands, palms up. "Stop. Just... don't even start. I can't get into this again. I can't sort it out, not with words, not with thoughts. I know you _know_. And if you know that much then you know that this is not where you belong." The mechanical, flat sound of his own words scared him. He thought he might shit his trousers or throw up just to hear them, and here was Vince, looking only curious.

"So what is it I'm supposed to know, then?"

Vince's voice was forcibly cool -- an edge of paranoia just beneath it -- and he glanced at the mirror again, blew his fringe away from his forehead. All at once, Julian had the feeling he was being toyed with. _Toyed with_ by a fictional creation. And then he realised that he was scared. Terrified, in fact. Not of Vince, but of the fact that he was here. That Noel was nowhere that could be reached by coach or cab.

"You look pale," Vince said, going pale himself. They stared at each other, locked up in some kind of strange, silent standoff where neither wanted to admit to the secret knowledge that swam between them. There was a wheezy sound that Julian realised was coming from his own chest, and Vince flitted his eyes up and down, as if he could hear it. As if it meant something to him.

And then something else swam between them. Julian felt it twist just below his belt: rage and something else. Something he didn't want to think about. _Couldn't_ think about. He pushed it away, back into the recesses of his mind, forcing it elsewhere.

Where elsewhere was, he didn't know.

"...How?" Vince finally asked, biting his lip.

Julian swallowed. "Don't know." It struck him as odd that they were speaking in the short, curt manner of strangers, but then, how else would they speak? He desperately wished Vince would throw him a line, some kind of bait that would lure a string of nouns and verbs out of him, forming a single, effortless sentence that would take them one step closer to familiar territory. "Uh," he said lamely, running his fingers through his hair and blanching at the greasy feel.

Vince shifted awkwardly, even more awkward in his own unfamiliarity with awkwardness. "Cup of tea?" he offered weakly, turning his palms up.

"Are you..." Julian trailed off, annoyed now. "We're in a _pub_!"

"Yeah!" Vince said, with forced brightness. "They've probably got some tea. This is England, after all." He paused. "This _is_ still England, isn't it, Howard?"

Julian sighed. "My name's not Howard, okay? Surely you can tell I'm not Howard, can't you?"

"What's wrong with being Howard?" Vince said bluntly, taking a step forward that caught Julian off-guard.

"Nothing!" Julian stood his ground, though he could feel sweat gathering in beads over his forehead. It was ridiculous to be afraid, and yet he was. "I'm an actor, see? I play Howard on stage, on television. Have you, ah, managed to sort that out since you've been here? In this world, see --" he swallowed "-- Howard's a sort of character. And so's Vince. My friend Noel, he plays Vince. He's... you'd like him, he's a lot like Vince. He's like you, I mean... " _Fuck!_ He tried to stop himself from saying more, but in his own nervousness the words kept coming. Not a single, effortless sentence of explanation, but a whole rubbish bin of oddly-sized and decidedly smelly scraps, tossed onto the floor for them to kick about uselessly.

"I would not either like him," Vince said, rather nastily. "And I don't like you much, just so's you know. So why don't you go and write _that_ into your famous show."

Well. Julian didn't know what to say to that.

Vince, however, suddenly had a mouthful to share. "I reckon the pair of you have made a name for yourselves. Going on stage and pretending to be us, getting a laugh with your poor, mis-matched sods routine." His tone grew more sour as he spoke; one of the lights over the sink flickered ominously. _"One's thick and revels in it -- the other's thick and fancies himself clever,_ " he said, sounding as if he were quoting something or someone.

Julian shook his head. "We're not pretending to be you..." he said, then didn't know how to finish. What could he say? _We_ are you _. Sort of._

"You are too!" Vince protested. Someone opened the door to the loo a crack, heard the shout, and hastily shut it again.

"You're _not real_!" Julian burst out, the sweat rolling down his temples now. "You're just an idea... just ink to paper!" He sucked in a huge breath, building up to something he couldn't anticipate. "You're not even close," he said, and the obscure words stung him all over, an unwelcome surprise because he felt the truth of them fully.

Vince's pale cheeks flare crimson at this. "Maybe you're the one who ain't real, ever think of that?" You may have acted out our life on your rubbish telly programme, but I've _lived_ it. And who are you to tell me I haven't?"

Julian swallowed. "I'm the one who knows everything about you." He paused for a beat. "And you know nothing about me."

The bewildered expression on Vince's face nearly caused Julian instant regret, but that bewilderment was fast replaced with helpless fury. "I know that you're a wanker!" he bellowed, lunging at Julian as if he wanted to hit him.

Julian yanked his head back so hard that pain shot through it in protest. He'd seen this same face come at him with fists less that twenty-four hours ago, and he wouldn't let those fists touch him this time. Not now, when the person who belonged to them was gone, and not when that particular absence might be his very own fault.

"Don't..." Julian said, backing into the wall and raising his hands, looking away from the vivid nearness of Vince's face. "Don't come so close. The closer you are..."

_The farther away he seems. The farther away he seems, the farther away I seem._

"The what?" Vince's brow rumpled in confusion, his flare of rage not so much fading as vanishing completely. He came close yet again, sudden concern pulling him near. "All right?" He raised his hand, and two white fingertips brushed against one of the wrists that Julian had thrown up to his face.

" _Don't._ " Julian yanked his whole body away from the tender gesture, his hip connecting painfully with the lip of the sink.

Vince drew away. "Ever touch you," he said, finishing the line that was equally familiar to both of them, now more than ever.

They stared at each other, the sink dripping out the seconds that passed.

"You have to go," Julian said lamely, and his voice had a woebegone tone to it that he hadn't heard since he was a schoolboy.

"No, _you_ have to go. I want Howard back."

"I'm Howard. And you don't."

Vince's eyes widened. "You just said you weren't Howard! And look at you... you're not. You're all wrong."

Julian winced, trying not to feel too much relief at Vince's denial. "I'm not him, but I am. Watch." He adopted a stiffer stance, then forced it into a guise of relaxation: the posturing of someone who exuded confidence that he did not truly feel. Someone who strutted while keeping one eye on the ground for the holes he was sure he'd fall into. Once he had his body arranged, Julian gave Vince a half-smile, the sort that made it seem one side of his face was overly earnest with the other expected a sharp smack. "Polar Bear is on the vital, cutting-edge of jazz, Vince," he said, his tone elegantly patronising. "It's big, raw-boned and exciting, much like myself. You'd do well to open your ears to it."

As he spoke, Vince screwed his eyes up tight and jammed his hands against the sides of his face, his lips snarling in a way that reminded Julian of Noel as he worked up for a spectacular tantrum. "Stop it!" he yelped, shaking his head, his eyes open and wild now. He backed up, nearly tripped over himself, then scrambled through the door, running.

Julian didn't run after him. He went to the sinks instead, turning on the faucet and splashing cold water that he couldn't feel into his face.

After that, he tried to calm himself by doing one thing at a time, very slowly and precisely, so as to focus on nothing but the task itself. First he returned to the table he and Vince had been sat at and found the cigarette he had been unable to smoke before. It was warm when he picked it up, as if happy to no longer be rejected. He smoked it, lighting up with one of the few matches remaining in a battered matchbook that had been abandoned on a barstool.

In red-print, the matchbook's cover advised:

_FIND YOURSELF_

Julian started at the red letters until they began to blur, the match burning down between his fingers so that he let out a muffled yelp and dropped it, shaking his hands to get the sting out. He took another quick look at the matchbook, then stuffed it in his pocket. Then he smoked, pulling the fumes into his lungs, tasting the dirty tang of nicotine on his tongue. He watched the blue smoke curl toward the lights and join the cloud that blanketed the ceiling. But he could only count his exhalations and watch smoke for so long before thoughts started to nudge in, creeping through the cracks. Again and again, he saw the ground rushing towards him, and heard angry, hateful words that he'd give anything to have back. When he gave up pretending he didn't care and finally looked around the room for Vince, he was unsurprised to find no sight of him.

Patting down his pockets, he concentrated on cataloging what resources he had. There was the familiar biro he kept in the hidden breast pocket of his jacket; unfortunately, the small stash of bank notes he kept in there were gone but for a few coins; the money must have bought Howard and Vince their entry into the club, plus all those drinks. His mobile was nowhere to be found, nor were the keys to his flat. His flat that he'd lived in for less than a year -- the first flat he'd ever had a leasehold on -- not large or particularly luxurious, but it had lots of character and was located in a quiet but pleasingly eccentric neighbourhood. Much of the flat was still empty as he'd never been big on personal possessions, never needing more than a place for his records and guitars, and a comfortable sofa for resting his bones. When the house's uncluttered surfaces started to go furry with dust, Noel came over and wiped them down. Once, Noel had hung up a painting, a landscape of strange and colourful hills that looked as if they might actually be the back a fantastic creature that was sleeping just beyond the edge of the canvas; it was one of Noel's own works, one that Julian had always admired. He'd blinked to discover it hanging over the hearth, surprised that Noel didn't want it for himself. _Them blank walls were like having to see screaming,_ Noel had explained. Sometimes, Julian wondered what he would forget if it weren't for Noel. His countertops, his laundry, and perhaps even other parts of himself.

The only other things in Julians' pockets were a slightly battered travelcard and the key to a hotel room. The latter Julian stared at. It seemed weirdly obscene to be carrying a hotel key around the city you already lived in.

Pocketing the key, his attention was drawn to a man who was standing nearby, holding his mobile up to capture a picture of the band on stage.

"Hi," Julian said, tapping the man on his shoulder. "Pardon me."

The man turned around, annoyed, but his expression softened somewhat as he regarded Julian, perhaps in recognition or maybe because Julian looked particularly helpless.

"Might I use your mobile? Sorry, but I've lost my ride home. It honestly won't take more than a minute."

The man chewed on his lip, considering, then finally handed his mobile over. "Make it quick, yeah?"

Julian nodded, said his thanks, then moved away from the man in the interest of finding a bit of quiet, but stayed close enough so that the man didn't think he was running off with his pricey technology. He clicked the phone on, then realised that the only numbers he'd committed to memory -- his real memory, rather than that of his own mobile's -- was Noel's, his Dad's, and his agent's. He might be able to remember Dave's if he tried, and maybe Dee's. They both showed up often enough on his own mobile screen for him to know the look of them. But of all those people, who could he really call? His Dad was up North, and Pamela was more likely to ask questions than to listen. As he was thinking it over, his hand thumbed in Noel's number of its own accord. Holding his breath, he held the phone to his ear; the space between rings seemed much longer than usual, more vast that a field of wind-swept snow.

_Hey, you've got Noel. Tell me your story._

Then there was the signal that indicated he was to leave a message. Julian opened his mouth and words he hadn't anticipating tumbled out.

"Jesus, I really thought it was you for a minute..." he began, breathless, then remembered that he was talking to no one.

He hung up.

"Thanks," he said dully, returning the mobile back to its owner. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and let his feet move him toward the exit.

The sound of the band faded behind him. It was a song he would have enjoyed, had he been in a state to enjoy it. Instead, he was numb with the sound of Noel's voice, ringing in his ears as it was.

Outside, it was cool and misting just slightly. Everything glimmered with a slightly alien sheen, tenuous like the surface of a soap bubble. Julian ran his fingertips across a shop window, feeling them gather up the moisture that beaded down the glass. Who had dreamt up this city? What grand mind had wound it up like a clockwork toy, and who watched the whir and wheel of its inner-workings? Of its lonely, always-searching inhabitants?

A gust of wind blew a ruckus of litter across his feet in answer: a chocolate wrapper, crumpled theater adverts, a paper coffee cup. Hugging his arms around himself, Julian shivered and walked faster.

 

***

  
The more Howard looked around, the more he saw that a lot of things were wrong. It wasn't just his missing type-writer and jazz records, either. Now that he thought about it, why should those even be here, anyway? He'd taken them all with him when he left the zoo and moved in with Vince, Naboo, and Bollo. But if his belongings weren't here, then why was the wallpaper from the flat? Why that old tent? Wandering round the small hut, he found more and more things he'd almost forgotten about, but none of the things that he actually needed. What good would a dog sled, an empty container of shaving cream, and some women's ratted up stockings do him and Vince? He _did_  find a little moustache comb lodged between a large box of laxatives and the tea kettle, and that he happily kept. His moustache had grown back sharpish since letting Vince trim it off -- who knew that a good clean shave would produce a resplendent set of whiskers within hours?

Under the pretense of looking for his records on the windowsill, Howard flicked the little tea-towel curtain aside and peered out at Vince. It was an uncharacteristically dark night in the Zoo, and Howard had trouble making out what his friend was doing, exactly, but he was relieved to see that he hadn't moved from his spot by the tree, which was exactly where Howard had left him.

 _He's probably thinking of how best to apologise to me,_ Howard thought with satisfaction, letting the curtain drop back. Knowing how Vince's shiny mind worked, Howard figured the most he could hope for was an apology about those harsh words towards Charles Mingus. It was beyond Vince's scope to take the blame for the whole course of the crazy day.

And surely, that course had started because of something Vince had done. That's how it always worked.

 _It was your idea to leave that hotel room, though_ , a voice chided at that back of Howard's mind. The voice sounded like it belonged to the wind. Howard didn't much care for the wind.

"Yeah, but he's the reason we woke up in that hotel room to begin with!" Howard countered. "I was nice and cosy in our hut... I mean, our flat..." he trailed off, uncertain. Fact was, he couldn't remember where he'd been or what he'd been doing before waking up in that hotel room. He had the curious feeling he'd just been suspended somewhere, some place where his past and present were mingled together in a kind of steamy, biographical soup. Steamy, tasty soup. He could go for a cup of that right now.

 _Not everything comes down him or you_.

"Course it does. That's how it _works_ , you idiot," Howard mumbled, yanking open a cabinet. Maybe someone had left some soup in here. "He starts something and I finish it, or I start something and he finishes it."

 _So you admit that it's_ you _who sometimes starts things._

Howard looked up and spoke to the ceiling. "That's not an admission, sir. Do not put that on the record as an admission." He shut the cabinet and rubbed at his face, willing to admit that he was, in fact, going a little bit mad. The fact of the matter was that he couldn't see any pattern to the day's course. He couldn't even begin to glimpse what sort of cause and effect was at work here, and it wasn't the day's strange and unexpected events that perturbed him, but by the lack of a connecting thread. Why were they here, anyway? And hadn't Bainbridge lost the Zoo during a craps game with some Thai businessmen?

Had he been less Howard, it might have occurred to Howard that he wasn't exactly happy to be back at the Zoo. There were good memories here -- songs sung with Vince, the porpoise derbies, staying up 'till the wee hours with Techno Mouse -- but this was a place of definite failings, too. He didn't actually want to reminisce about the time he'd nearly been killed by a Kangaroo, or his all-too-brief career as a novelist, or of that painful, torrid romance with Mrs. Gideon.

His day in London with Vince had been strange, but it had also been completely new. It was as if, for the first time ever, he'd been cut free from the confining cloth of his life. Now he felt himself being stitched back in, unwilling and unsettled.

That Vince had suddenly gone so edgy and odd was another unsettling thing. Not to mention that it wasn't really like him to want a spot of time alone. He wasn't the sort of man who appreciated solitude. He wasn't _like_  Howard. Howard actually sort of _liked_  that he wasn't like Howard.

 _Oh, first accuse him of never changing, then for an encore you ponder how he's not quite himself. There's the consistency of a Northerner for you_.

"Shut up." Howard bit his lip and walked to the window again, flipping aside the curtain and squinting into the dark. A wind had kicked up, stirring the tree branches and making it difficult for Howard to see where Vince was. Craning his neck, Howard strained his eyes until he thought they might pop out of his head. Was that Vince's profile, or was it just some artfully jagged scenery?

"He's really not himself at all, is he?"

"Oh, for God's sa..." It took a half-sentence before Howard realised that the voice had spoken aloud rather than in his head. He whirled around, seeking out the source of the voice, but it wasn't as if there were many places to look.

"Come on, Harold. There aren't that many hiding places around here." The voice was coming quite obviously from inside the tent.

"Yeah, I know that. And the name's Howard, if you don't mind. Howard T.J. Moon. And you, sir, can show yourself straightaway."

"Cheers for the invite," the voice said, clealy amused. The tent shuddered and squeaked as something rather large and cumbersome, from the sounds of it, tried to clamber out. It emerged with its fuzzy bum first, followed by a sloped back and long, ape arms. Then it popped upright and regarded Howard with greasepaint eyes.

"Bollo! Oh, God, Bollo!" Howard stiffened in horror and fascination. "Monkeys stole your face, Bollo, and, and... left you with a... human one?"

It was true. Bollo's face -- his entire head, in fact -- was human, tiny as a grape perched on that furry mountain of a body. His sandy hair stood up in dampish peaks, and the black circles around his eyes gave him the look of a fiendish panda.

"Nah, it's right here," Bollo said, holding up his gorilla head. It had previously been tucked under his arm, like a helmet.

"Well, put it back on!"

"Do you know how hot this thing is?" Bollo protested, indicating his entire body. "You're lucky I'm not completely naked."

"Please, don't say anymore," Howard said, raising a hand to his mouth. "I'll be sick."

Bollo rolled his eyes. They looked very white and blue in all that black. "Quit being so dramatic. You'd think you'd have learned to expect the unexpected by now."

"Why would I ever expect my good friend Bollo, _the gorilla_ , to end up a short man in an ape suit?"

"I don't recall us having ever been good friends," Bollo said coolly, tossing his head onto the little sofa. "But fact is, I'm here to help you out."

Howard regarded the gorilla-man with a little suspicion. "Your face... I feel like I've seen it before."

Bollo shrugged. "You have."

Knowledge flashed in the back of Howard's head. "We talked about jazz!" he said, pointing triumphantly. "In the hotel pub, right?"

"We?" Bollo smiled. "That was you and Dave, not you and me."

"You... why do you look like Dave, then?"

Bollo held up his hands and sighed. "It's not _my_  fault, see? None of this has a thing to do with me. But my head isn't just hot, it doesn't even fit anymore. Nothing around here fits. Haven't you noticed?" He gestured around the hut.

"Don't know what you mean," Howard said, nervously licking the corners of his moustache.

"Right," Bollo said, smiling thinly. "Fine. Be stubborn about it." He turned to a shelf and ran his fingers over it, picking up a white-fringed scarf as he went. "Hm. Looks like your stuff doesn't fit here anymore, either."

Howard frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Your records, your typewriter... it's all gone missing, hasn't it?"

"They're around here somewhere. Back at the flat, maybe."

Bollo laughed. "You _are_  back at the flat. What's left of it after everything's collapsed in on itself, anyway."

A little niggle of fear wormed its way into Howard's heart, upping his pulse. "You may walk like a man, but you still talk like an ape," he said, though his attempt at haughtiness fell flat.

"I know better than to try to argue with someone as mule-headed as you," Bollo said with a little smirk. "So I'll just tell you one thing. That man out there is not the Vince you know." He pointed to the window, his face terribly and suddenly grim.

Howard swallowed. "I don't know what you mean."

Bollo's smile was a little said. "Yes, you do. Or you will. Soon enough there'll be nothing left of this place, and no room for you or me in it." He moved past Howard then, his fur brushing across Howard's bare arms and making him blanch. Had Bollo's fur always been so synthetic?

Bollo stopped by the window and gazed out of it, his reflection as hollow-eyed as a prophet's. "Did you notice there's no moon tonight?" he offered, almost casually. "That's because there's no room for the moon when it's all about one star." The reflection lifted his eyebrow, cocked his head knowingly.

"Who cares?" Howard countered, the words as harmless as spoons. He'd like that Dave guy's face a lot better when it had been spouting on about jazz.

Bollo turned around and met Howard's gaze. "Don't trust him."

"What, and trust you instead?"

Bollo smiled faintly, then sighed. "No, I guess I couldn't expect you to trust me. Who would you trust, then? Naboo? No, I know... Tommy Nooka."

"No," Howard said, averting his eyes.

"There has to be _someone_ you trust, Howard."

Howard let his eyes meet the man-gorilla's again. Never before had he felt so certain before he spoke, and never before had he spoke with such certainty.

"Yeah, there is. _And it's Vince_."

  
***

 


	6. part six

  
**A Journey Through Time and Space**

 

***

 

part six   


_If I ever get_ my _chance to tell this story, which I won't cos I'm just_ ink to paper _, I'd have you know that it weren't my idea to run out of that club like a tweaked hare. Do I look like someone who was made to run? Being chased by something deadly don't count, right. Basically I'm like Jagger -- I amble, I dance, I glide. And if I ran just this once it was only to push the thoughts away, they were thickening like custard till me head was like to burst. But if this were my story there wouldn't just be running, there'd be music, something with a shattering beat to keep my feet going, and my boots wouldn't cut blisters into my heels and mini-cabs wouldn't blast their horns when I tripped and flailed off the kerb. Except I wouldn't trip and flail, either. Wherever I walked, I would have your hands to hold me up. Your hands, which are perfect cos they made me and made me so._

***

To walk these familiar streets ought to have been relief. There was the Spar that Julian went round to at night for cigarettes and beer. Virendra was behind the register, bright as life in the fluorescent lighting, a newspaper spread between his hands. Shop fronts dwindled away into period conversions that loomed right up over the pavement, their windows filled with the moving shadows of people who were content to tick out the minutes of their lives. A nearby church let out a chorus of ringing bells to signal the hour, as it always did. When he'd first moved to this neighbourhood, Julian had worried that the bells would bother him, but then later came to see them as saving him the trouble of wearing a watch. He'd always meant to figure out just which church the bells came from -- there were a few around these parts -- but he'd never got round to it. It seemed sad that he'd never got round to it.

Familiar as these things may be, they rang false to him now. The buildings were budged up together chummily, stately conspirators that were too perfect, even in all their many imperfections. He felt like he could reach right into them and rip them away, then rip away what was behind them, and on and on. Just one mask after another. Even the bells rang false, falling sour and flat in his ears. 

Then he turned the corner onto his street and saw the one thing in this place that he could count on being real. And it was horrible that it should be real, this silhouette hammered out by streetlight and slouched against his front steps, its hair gone weird and witchy in the night's humidity. Real, but an impostor. Real, but not belonging at all. It was bent over as if panting or struggling to stand, then Julian's heels grated on gravel and the head shot up, quick as a cornered creature's. 

"How did you get here?" Julian asked.

"What're you doing here?" Vince asked at the same time.

"I live here." Julian looked around again to confirm it. 

"Here?!" Vince said it as if 'here' were furthest Egypt. 

"Yeah." Julian studied him, walking closer. "What, you mean you didn't know that?" He could tell from Vince's expression that he did not, and Julian felt himself go cold and fearful of whatever power or weird twist of fate on this earth could have led Vince to his street out of all others. "It's a long walk from Camden," he finally said, not bothering to tell Vince that he'd taken the last train at the Goodge Street station. 

"I ran," Vince said, massaging his side. 

"I know. I sort of saw you go."

Vince straightened up, wincing as he did so. "When I saw you come round that corner just now, I thought maybe you'd followed me," he said, his voice still hitching with a trace of breathlessness. "But I guess you just live here, yeah?" His face was expectant in a way that made Julian feel shitty. Shitty like he was the reason Vince was wincing in the first place.

"Ah, yeah, that's right. But it's good that you're here. I wouldn't have known where to find you, otherwise." Vince smiled weakly, and his relief was on painful display in the grin that overtook his features.

"No worries, yeah?" Vince said, seeming to forget the distress that had sent him running from the toilets.

Close enough to get a good look at him now, Julian saw that Vince was not at all troubled by the coincidence of their meeting, or if he was he didn't show it. But then, why would he be troubled? As far as he knew, not even death could keep him and Howard apart. What was an unfamiliar city compared to that? 

"Are we going into your house?" Vince asked. Despite the smile he wore, he was pale, dirty, and bleary-eyed. In need of a good rest. 

"No. Well, maybe," Julian hesitated. His plan had in fact been to go around through the garden to the back terrace, and to push one of the bins under his bedroom window. The latch on the window was buggered, and he thought he might be able to force it open from the outside and climb in. Once inside, he was going to... well, he hadn't thought that far ahead. Have a drink? Certainly. Then he was going to call someone. He just didn't know who.

_Hey, you've got Noel. Tell me your story..._

"Do you think we could? I'm sort of cold. And my feet hurt," Vince admitted, shifting from one scuffed boot to the other. 

Julian shook his head, as if hassled by a fly. Why did hearing Vince's voice make the memory of Noel's fade out like a radio station losing reception? And yet, a good, hard look at Vince's face (god, it was so fucking _earnest_ \-- why couldn't it look self-important and lost in vanity?) brought it back, strong as ever. Julian's feelings warred with another, battling over what was right: to shout and bully this impostor out of existence, or to pull him close and coax what was left of Noel out of him. He didn't know if his confused self could handle having Vince inside his flat, taking up all the Noel-shaped space.

"Oh. Well, I guess it's worth trying. We'll have to break in, though." 

"Really?" Vince looked intrigued. "With a crowbar?"

"Um, no. With a window." Julian hesitated, then pointed out the ramshackle garden gate that was half-hidden by foliage that was not yet fully revived by Springs return. "It's round back." 

"Okay!" 

Vince didn't make a move, and, feeling rather stupid, Julian realised he was waiting for him to lead the way. So he did, forcing the rusty gate open and moving gingerly through the narrow, ill-tended garden. Here were towering shrubs that crowded him right up against the side of the house, and a path made of broken bricks that were slippery with moss. He took his steps slowly, unsure if he should stick to being quiet and sneaky or simply strut about like he owned the place. He _did_ own the place, but at the moment it didn't feel as if he did. The dark was thick enough to swim in. He wouldn't have recognised himself in it. Looking up to catch a snatch of light, he found none, but was nevertheless relieved to see that the windows on the top floor of the building were dark, indicating that the neighbours were either out or asleep for the night. It wouldn't do well to be reported for tramping about in his own garden.

"Why's it so dark back here?" Vince asked, his voice closer than Julian expected. The other man was right at his heels, and a tug alerted him to the fact that Vince was clutching at the back of his jacket. 

"No one left a light on."

"I can't see anything!" Vince's voice edged into panic and his hold on the back of Julian's jacket tightened. "What's that noise?"

"Nothing! It's just some frogs, I think." Julian reached around and tried to give Vince a false, reassuring pat and disentangle himself at the same time. "The people behind us keep a pond in their garden." He found Vince's fingers bunched at the waistband of his jacket, tighter than a sprung mouse-trap, and tried, gently, to pry them away. Vince let go, then clamped his fingers together again. They clamped right around Julian's hand, which Vince drew to his chest and gripped in a way that brought the phrase "for dear life" to mind.

Maybe it was just his imagination, but Julian thought that his hijacked hand actually could feel the chilly fear that roiled beneath Vince's chest. Or maybe it was just something he heard in Vince's voice, which trembled out the words "I've never heard frogs sound like that before."

"Yeah, well, I guess you hear them singing an upbeat tune most of the time, don't you? Something about rainbows or how it's not easy being green, maybe?" Julian said, ducking under a low-hanging limb. 

"No, they're dreadful singers, but not usually this dreadful." Vince relaxed his hold on Julian's hand, but made no move to let go completely. "And the moon doesn't usually hide."

Julian stopped. Vince walked into his back with a grunt. "What do you mean, hide?" he asked, his voice sounding strained to his own ears as he turned around to face the other man.

"Well, where's it gone off to? I don't see it, do you?"

"So what? It could be a new moon." 

"New moon?" Vince was oblivious.

"Or it just hasn't risen yet."

It was too dark for Julian to make out Vince's expression, but he heard the other man sigh. "Waiting for the moon to rise," he said, then squeezed Julian's hand between his own smaller ones. He dropped his head in a kind of sympathy, and either his mouth or the breath that came from it brushed the curve of Julian's thumb. 

"What?" Julian jerked away with his whole body. 

"What?" Vince echoed, sounding hurt. "What's wrong?"

"Listen," Julian said, swooping towards what he could make out of Vince's shape, all points and frothy hair. "Don't -- listen, do you _know_ everything that's happened to me? To us? Are you in on this mindfuck?" He reached blindly and felt his knuckles collide against Vince's sternum, then he moved his hands up higher and gripped the other man's shoulders. 

"I dunno what you mean!" Vince said, the words so close to panic that Julian relaxed his hold at once. 

"I..." he trailed off, then tried, lamely and far too late, to make his hands comforting rather than rough. "What you said about the moon just startled me, all right? Sorry."

"Okay," Vince said. He did not reach for Julian's hand again.

Turning around and resuming his hunt for the rubbish bins, Julian tried not to consider the possibility that Vince was somehow... well, what? Malevolent? Duplicitous? No. More Old Gregg than Vince, underneath all the innocent posturing. Maybe more than he had anticipated altogether...not that he had ever anticipated this scenario at all: him and his fictional counterpart's counterpart, about to break into his own house in search of refuge from the scenario itself.

As much as he might want to trust Vince just for having Noel's face -- and a particularly helpless version of Noel's face, at that -- Julian wasn't sure that it was a wise idea to do so. And yet he was so fucking tired of being on his guard, so tired of waiting for the other horrible shoe to drop. He just wanted to get into his flat and to surround himself with all that was certain and familiar.

Grimacing, Julian yanked the rubbish bin from its little alcove with more force than was necessary. Slamming it against the wall beneath his bedroom window, he turned and regarded Vince, who was watching him from a respectful distance.

"Can you hold the bin steady? I'll have to climb up top of it and try to get the window open." 

"Yeah, okay." Vince crouched down slightly and obliged as best he could, holding the bin with narrow arms. 

Mounting the bin, Julian felt the plastic lid give under his weight. He hoped to hell that it didn't snap. Unsteadily, he stood at full height and pushed the window up and open, relieved when it did so easily and without complaint. Because Julian didn't have much furniture, there was no dresser or plant-stand beneath the window, and he was able to swing his leg over and manipulate his large body through the casement. Once inside, he poked his head back out the window and looked down at Vince. "Climb the bin and I'll pull you in."

Getting the other man inside was easy, he didn't weigh much and was light on his feet. Still, once Vince was safely inside Julian collapsed on the foot of his bed in profound bodily exhaustion. He closed his eyes and wanted nothing more than to let the room's silence fill him and take him away in sleep, but he couldn't -- not when he sensed Vince's expectant eyes on him. 

"I'll get up in a minute," he muttered, rubbing his face and blanching yet again at its startling smoothness. Lucky his whiskers would be back by morning.

"Don't rush," Vince said. "Can I take my boots off?"

"They're Noel's." Julian rubbed his eyes now, making them sting. "Noel's boots. Just put them anywhere." He heard Vince shift around and kick the boots off.

"You don't have a lot of stuff, do you?" Vince asked, his bare feet padding against the floorboards as he took in the room. "Sort of empty in here. Those walls... it's like they're screaming or starving, they're so bare."

Julian swallowed, but his throat still felt unnaturally thick, clogged up with some emotion he couldn't identify. "There's a painting in the lounge."

"Oh, yeah? I paint, you know. Did a series of portraits on the animals at the zoo... Mr Rogers the mighty cobra, Bollo the wise old ape, that headless chicken that dances on a hot plate..."

"Yeah, I know what you've painted." Julian sat up, his head spinning with the sudden movement. "I know everything you've ever done, ever. Think you can try to remember that?"

Vince's mouth hung open dumbly for a moment. "I don't think you can know _everything_ ," he finally said, glowering a little beneath his muss of hair.

"Yeah, I do. There's no 'can' about it. And we're not going to play some kind of game where you try to find something I don't know, all right?" Julian tried hard to sound more no-nonsense than angry as he came to his feet and marched with purpose through his flat, snapping on lamps here and there. The flat had a stale, closed-up smell, and the air was damp, verging on chilly. The light from his paltry collection of lamps did little to cheer the place. His home might be sparse, but there were usually signs of life: music on the turn-table, a clutter of Heineken bottles and teacups on the kitchen counter, or a rumpled shirt left in this or that corner. Desperate to warm up the morgue-like atmosphere of the flat, and to ward away the chill that was lodged somewhere in his chest, like something swallowed wrong, Julian ran the kettle under the kitchen tap and plugged it in. 

"Cup of tea?" Vince asked. Now that he wasn't wearing those clattery boots, Julian hadn't heard him come into the kitchen.

"Yeah, coming up in a bit here." 

"All right. I take mine with a lot of sugar."

Julian looked over his shoulder at him. "Sorry, I don't have any." Having never used it much himself, he'd stopped keeping sugar around when Noel had gone on that GI diet a while back. It seemed silly that something as trivial as a difference in tea preference should make Julian feel more at ease, but it did. Vince was a sugar-junkie, as always, whereas Noel had weaned himself off his own sweet tooth some time ago. 

"Oh." Vince's face fell in disappointment. 

"You could try it without?" Julian suggested. "Sometimes you just get used to something one way, but... it might not be so bad the other?" he trailed off, not expecting Vince to buy this lame proposal. He wasn't sure if he bought it himself.

"Yeah, I might do," Vince said, agreeably enough. 

They spoke little while waiting for the water to boil. Vince glided around the tile floor in his stocking feet, seeming to delight in the act of almost falling down. He stopped monkeying around only long enough to stare at the refrigerator, his eyes taking in the things Julian had pinned to it.

"What's this?" He asked, his finger tracing over something. 

Julian looked. Amidst the unpaid bills and old fliers for jazz gigs, there was a photograph of him and Noel, anchored to the refrigerator with a magnet. The photograph wasn’t a press shot or anything remarkable, just an everyday candid photograph taken by a fan at some signing or event Julian couldn't even remember now. It had come in the mail without a note or return address, and Noel had been the one to find it amongst Julian's un-opened mail. Julian hated opening mail. Mail itself felt like an enormous intrusion on his life and time. He let it pile up on the table just inside the entrance to his flat, and every few weeks or so he let Noel open it, not because he wanted to know what he'd gotten in the mail but because it was a small task that gave Noel an enormous amount of pleasure. Noel didn't seem to look through the mail for anything in particular -- certainly nothing that Julian could see -- and coming across a fan letter was rare, since all the fan mail was forwarded to his agent's office. So when Noel had opened an envelope containing a photograph and nothing else, it had given Julian the creeps and he'd asked him to throw it out. 

He'd been sure that Noel had thrown it out. So why was it here, suddenly on his refrigerator? Julian came closer, inspecting it. In the photograph, he wasn't looking into the lens, but slightly off at Noel, and there was a smile on his face, albeit a hazy one. Noel, in contrast, gave the camera the full treatment, the flirty eyes and a teasing bite of smile. The photograph looked slightly battered. Had Noel throw the picture away, only to dig it out of the bin again and pin it up?

"It's just... a photograph," Julian said, stammering slightly. He turned quickly and set about fetching mugs from the cabinet, feeling Vince's eyes on his back all the while. 

Water was poured, tea was steeped, and by the time Julian had his hands wrapped around a warm mug he felt a little bit better. But he still had no idea what to do with himself. He paced from one end of the kitchen to the other, then finally leaned against the counter and took in Vince's unkempt and sleepy appearance. 

"What happened to you today?"

"What do you mean?" Vince blew on his tea and sipped at it politely, though it was clear he didn't care much for the sugar-free taste of it. 

"It might be important. It might help me, I don't know, figure out what's gone wrong." 

"Oh. Well, let me think." Vince screwed up his face and looked as if he were thinking very hard indeed. "I woke up this morning, didn't I?"

Julian sighed. "Yeah, I could have guessed that. Got anything more significant?"

"I woke up with Howard in a hotel room, but we didn't really know it was a hotel room just then, did we? Me an' Howard had a bit of a row cos he thought I redecorated the place in my sleep," Vince giggled once, then continued. "And then someone knocked on the door and it was Fossil, except he didn't act much like Fossil. He _liked_ us! Wanted to meet somewhere for breakfast, even. But me an' Howard, we knew there was some shady business afoot and I took care of him with a face full of hairspray and then we found something we could use to tie him to the radiator and --"

"What's that?" Julian burst out. "You _took care_ of Rich? Tied him to a radiator?" Julian looked Vince over to see if he was joking, but how was he supposed to determine that in a face that never really looked serious to being with? "Oh, shit. Shit." He put his mug down hard on the table, then took the sort of dangerous, decisive step towards Vince that would have driven Noel to a hasty exit. 

Vince, however, only looked proud of himself. "Sure. We're quick thinkers in a crisis. Minds sharper than a drawer full of knives. Hey, who's Rich?"

Julian paused, caught unawares by the question. "Rich is... he's..." he floundered, reaching for his mug again in an addled way, annoyed that his fury was being interrupted. "It's not important that you know, is it?"

Vince shrugged. "Anyway, don't worry because he just thought we were having a lark. Taking the piss, you know? That's what the Naboo-bloke told us later, anyway."

_Naboo_?

Julian's mouth worked, but no sound came out. The mug in his hand tipped this way and that, tea sloshing over the edge and pattering to the floor, the whole thing threatening to drop at any second. Amazingly, it was Vince who reached out and steadied it just in time. 

"Watch it, jigglefingers. Maybe we'd better get you into more of a sit-down position," Vince advised. "There's loads more where that came from." 

Vince was right, as it turned out. Julian really didn't know everything that Vince had ever done, ever.

***

Noel was doing penance.

He wasn't a religious person. He was so not religious that he regularly forgot that other people were. Because of this, he sometimes cheerfully described god as a kiddie-diddling paedophile while in the presence of hell-fearing grannies. As for Hell, Noel had always imagined that it was a bit like Studio 54, with Grace Jones snorting cocaine off Divine's huge arse and short, greasy Steve Rubell trying to indiscreetly finger young men's balls. So Hell was a bit of good and bad, then. Just like anything else worth his time.

Now, he had discovered that doing penance was also worth his time. Though really, it wasn't so calculated as all that. He simply found himself apologising under his breath, over and over again, his contrition so profound that he was actually brought to his knees. He was in a kind of hysterical trance, panic and dread enveloping him so fully that he was incapable of rational thought. 

_Is this really necessary?_ Jenny huffed, tossed to and fro by his hectic rocking. _You knew this was coming. You created this whole situation._

The part of Noel that was actually listening curdled at the impact of the chameleon's words, which were as true as those she'd offered him only minutes earlier: _"You're Vince now. Everything you've always wanted will be yours."_ At the memory of them, he blanched and shivered. 

_This is ridiculous_ , Jenny said, thwacking his ear with her tail. _Get a hold of yourself._

Noel flailed lamely, trying to drive the chameleon away. "Leave me alone, you fucking foul reptile," he groused. "Go back to your garden and harass Eve."

Jenny ran down the length of his thigh to escape his slapping hands. _I'm not tempting you,_ she said, calm in a way that only served to madden Noel further. _You already tempted yourself. I'm just here to move things along a little faster._

"Move your things into the ocelot pit and die, then!" Noel shouted, aware that he sounded foolish but not caring. Who was listening that he cared about, anyway?

Jenny made a _tsking_ sound, and looked as if she would have narrowed her beady eyes, had it been possible. _The ocelot pit's likely gone by now, anyway._

Noel slumped over, pulling his hair over his eyes. "Why are you doing this to me?" he mumbled, his voice simply weary now. 

_I'm not doing anything to you_. The chameleon tilted her head in a way that seemed sympathetic. _I just want to ease your transition._

"I don't want to transition into Vince! Why does everyone think I want to be Vince? I want to be _me_ , I want to--"

_And who are you, really?_ Jenny pressed. _Do you actually think anyone can tell the difference? Do you think_ he _can?_

Noel froze. He didn't have to ask who _he_ was. 

"That's where the real Vince is now, isn't he?" Noel asked, more to himself than to the chameleon. "He's with Julian." This realisation left him colder than before, too empty to even care about penance.

_For now_ , Jenny said, riddlesome as a sphinx. 

"What are they doing?" Noel demanded. "What's going to happen? How do you--"

"Vince!"

The voice came bursting from the hut and Noel's head darted right around at the sound of it. Howard sounded so very much like Julian, after all. Jenny's claws left a brief sting in Noel's shoulders as she leaped from her perch and ran away, disappearing into the bushes with a rustle.

"Vince!" Howard repeated, his face flushed and hectic. "Bollo has a meat head! I mean, a man head!"

"What?" Noel blinked erratically. He was utterly dumbstruck by this announcement, and a little disoriented at Howard's presence. It seemed laughably impossible, but Noel had been so wrapped up in his own personal crisis that he had actually forgotten that the other man was nearby. Realising this now, Noel felt his panic erupt anew; having forgotten Howard at this particular moment seemed like a tragic oversight, and justification for everything that was happening to him. 

Howard pointed in the direction of the hut. "Bollo! He was just in there, only he looked like that jazz-appreciating gentleman from the pub. He had greasepaint eyes! He was the stuff of nightmares, if you want to be honest."

Noel shook his head, both mystified by Howard's words and his appearance, so emphatic and animated. It was hard to believe he'd seen Julian adopt this act hundreds of times before and had only thought to laugh. "Jazz-appreciating gentleman?" he finally asked. "I don't know who you mean."

Howard balked in frustration. "The man in the pub! Naboo's friend...Dave, I think his name was. Remember?"

At mention of Dave's name Noel bounded to his feet and, without comment, made a dash for the keeper's hut. He threw the door open and took in the untidy room. No Bollo, no Dave. There was an ache in his gut that he dimly registered as the dashing of hopes.

"He's gone," Noel said flatly.

"He was just here," Howard said, pointing at the tent. "Talking a bunch of malarkey that stunk to the heavens, yes sir. You believe me, don't you Vince?" 

Noel turned to look at Howard, then managed a weary smile, void of feeling. "What me, not believe you? What's not to believe now, after the day we've had?"

Howard's brow rumpled in visible concern. "What's wrong with you, Vince? You look like you swallowed a bee hive and got none of the honey." He put a hand to Noel's forehead, searching out a fever. 

"Don't," Noel said at once, shrugging away. "Sorry."

Howard's face twisted in a mocking way. "Oooh, mustn't muss the precious hair of Noir, passed on through generations of delicate dandies and glam rockers."

Noel let out a sigh that was almost a whine, then pressed his face into his hands, breathing in the grimy scent of them. "Please stop," he said, his voice wobbly. "I can't take much more of this."

"What's been done to you, Vince?" Howard pressed. He pulled a chair out from under the table and gently pushed Noel into it. "Was it all that jazz by Polar Bear? Is it..." at this his voice dropped "...is it me? Is it because my moustache is back? I swear I had nothing to do with it. I'll even get rid of it again, if you want." He retreated two steps into the kitchenette and started flinging drawers open.

The clatter and ruckus prompted Noel to remove his face from his hands. He watched as Howard made an _aha!_ noise and retrieved a pair of scissors from a jar that was crammed with pencils and drinking straws. The other man's eagerness to help tore at Noel; it was so puppyish. It was so not Julian. 

"You don't have to do that, Howard," he said quietly.

"You want to be the one to do it again?" Howard looked more worried at this. "I mean, if it will bring the bounce back to your boots, haha, then go right ahead." He extended the scissors in Noel's direction.

Noel glanced at them, then looked away. "This is a fitting punishment for me, I suppose," he said, following it with a noise that was half sniffle, half laugh. "Trapped inside the death of me and Julian's creation, and with Howard along for it." He wasn't sure who he was speaking to -- the absent Jenny, maybe, or perhaps just himself -- but he didn't much care. Exhausted, he slumped further into the chair. 

"What's that?" Howard set the scissors on the table, then stared at him. "Just what do you mean by that, 'me and Julian's creation'?"

Noel didn't answer. It would have been easy enough to move away from this dangerous territory -- the right smile, the right joke -- but he said nothing and looked at nothing. Even while attempting to look at nothing, Noel couldn't escape the sight of Howard cocking his head in question.

"When Bollo...I mean, man-Bollo, was here, he told me I couldn't trust you. He said you weren't the Vince I knew," Howard said, licking the ends of his moustache ever-so-slightly.

Noel felt the words fall, but didn't react. When he was younger, he was always the best at playing hide and seek. He was inventive and small, managing to squeeze himself into places his playmates never found: the bottom-most shelf of a cupboard, behind the stacks of towels and sheets; an over-turned wine crate, the box cradling his body so snugly that it seemed one good breath would make it burst open. They always expected him to be somewhere obvious, out in the open where he was easily seen. They only ever looked up, expecting that he'd be somewhere far, far above them, swinging from a comet. He'd hear them calling his name, calling him home, and feel his heart race down to his toes, waiting, waiting...

"But never you fear, little man. I know I can trust you."

Howard's hand fell onto Noel's shoulder, and for a split-second, Noel thought he heard someone shout _found you!_

But then Howard spoke again. "It's okay, Vince. It's been a confusing day, that's all. I feel all mixed up, too. My head's like a card catalogue after a hurricane's made a visit to the local library."

"No," Noel said, wincing all over.

Howard politely moved his hand away, mis-interpreting Noel's distress entirely. 

"I'm _not Vince_! Bollo -- Dave -- he was telling you the truth. I'm Noel. I'm NOEL." Noel came to his feet, his voice rising with him. "I'm Noel and I don't belong here. I don't, I don't..." the words mushed together, losing sense and shape as fear barreled through him. Noel's eyes darted to Howard's frightened ones, then around the room, desperate to latch on to something, anything. The table was covered in odds an ends: a plastic wreath of flowers; a matchbook -- _FIND YOURSELF_ , it advised; a Jacobean ruff, the pair of scissors...

He spotted the scissors. They'd jumped into his hand, somehow, and he zipped them back and forth, snipping the air, then without pause or fanfare he closed them down on a clump of his own hair, just above his shoulders. The clump fell to the floor like a small, felled animal. "Ha!" he said, spinning around in a circle and yelling not at Howard, but to something else. "Would Vince do something like that?"

"Whoa there, GI Jane," Howard said, taking a step backwards. "What'd you do that for?"

Noel thoughtlessly threw the scissors across the room and then looked down at himself in disgust: revolting neon tee-shirt, jeans so tight they were squeezing the life out of him. He peeled the tee-shirt off and tossed it aside, then began the struggle with his jeans.

"Uh." Howard watched this display, doubt etching its way across his already-concerned features. "That's a bit... yeah --" the jeans flew past his head "-- naked." 

"Look," Noel said, holding his arms out. "Look. I'll get rid of everything. I'll give it all up. I'll change."

Howard frowned. "They're going to lock you up with the drama llama, you know." 

Noel opened his mouth to let out an incomprehensible roar of frustration, but Howard stepped forward unexpectedly, cutting it off. Then he reached out and took hold of Noel's flailing hands: first one, then the other.

"Let it go," he said mildly. "Release it right out there, like a flock of diseased pigeons. Doesn't really matter who you are, or who you think you are. I still trust you."

Noel gasped harshly, the wind sucked right out of him. Howard let go of his hands, but it seemed he could still feel them tingling in his open palms. Noel stared at the other man. "How?" he croaked. He wasn't about to fucking cry. "I just don't know how you could." 

Howard shifted in discomfort, his face clearly indicating how close he was to being disturbed, and how hard he was trying to not to be. "Who else have I got around here?" he said. "Jack Cooper hates me and Graham's a tit."

With Howard, it was just that easy. Noel almost had to sit down, undone by such unwavering understanding. He blinked hard and held himself up as best he could, wondering what he'd done to earn Howard's loyalty when _Julian_ 's was so hard to come by. 

_And to think... somewhere under it all, they're the same person._ The thought was careless and light, gone in a blip. Just like everything else.

"All right? Erm, want a dressing gown, or something? I think I saw a poloneck?" Howard reached out tentatively and took hold of Noel's elbow.

"No," said Noel, and it was like finally spitting out something sour and awful. He paused then, but not for long, and not out of hesitation; there just wasn't much to hold back anymore. 

"But do you think you could hold me?" he asked, unafraid to meet Howard's eyes. "Just for a minute?" He made the request without planning on it, but he didn't feel embarrassed. He was naked and never going home again. 

Howard shuddered and Noel felt it through his fingertips, which were still clutching his elbow. "Su-ure," Howard said, his voice thick with unease. "You do know that you're naked, right?"

"Yes," Noel said, though he wasn't talking about clothes. He chased down Howard's eyes again. How could he ever have thought they were small? They seemed huge to him now, brown and squinting in a way that echoed familiarity. "Please?" Noel added. 

Howard opened his arms and Noel stepped into their circle. Very slowly, and very reluctantly, Howard's arms closed around him, coming down with firm and carefully-indifferent pressure. Noel pressed his cheek to Howard's chest and breathed in, feeling his body relax even as Howard's began to tremble. Then Noel wrapped his own arms around Howard's torso, his hands splayed against the taller man's shoulder blades and pulling him even closer. 

This is where he wanted the nightmare to end. Exactly here.

***

Julian massaged his temples. He'd been doing that a lot, especially since learning that Vince and Howard had run around London all day, acting exactly the way Vince and Howard would if set loose upon London. He would have been on the phone to Pamela in two seconds if Vince weren't still here, sat on his sofa nursing a mug of tea that Julian had topped off with a bit of scotch. Julian was tired, physically and mentally aching with fatigue, his mind surely frayed and ready to snap, but he sure as fuck wasn't about to go to sleep. What sort of shit could he expect to wake up to?

"Can I turn on the telly?" Vince asked, fingering the remote control from his spot on the sofa. "I'm bored and you ain't exactly a chatterbox." 

It was true that Julian hadn't said much since Vince had owned up to everything: the fans who'd pulled Vince's hair; Howard's swan-dive in Top-Shop; their drinks in the hotel pub with Mike and Dave. All that trouble only amplified the all-together more worrying one: he still didn't have Noel. He didn't know what he was supposed to do to get him back. And when Julian didn't know what to do, he sat and retreated into himself, letting the bruises fall as they may.

Not one to challenge Vince's impression of him with unnecessary words, Julian nodded curtly. He knew he'd be able to think more clearly if he went to the bedroom to be by himself, but he was reluctant to let Vince out of his sight. Not because he was enjoying Vince's company -- it was tolerable, at best, and highly uncomfortable, in general -- but because he didn't know what the fuck he'd do if Vince suddenly up and vanished, whisked back into the comedy soup he'd been strained from. Whatever else Julian did, he had to keep Vince safe; he had to keep him tidy and well-cared for, all ready for Noel's eventual return. 

And Noel would return. He would. Whatever other possibilities there were, Julian barred them from his mind. 

Vince turned on the television and clicked through the channels at rapid-fire speed, leaving his seat to sit cross-legged right in front of the screen, like a child hell-bent on giving himself a vision problem. He muttered aloud about having missed _Colobus the Crab_ , then stopped on a movie that was full of gunfire and explosions. Car-tires screeched and a thumping bass soundtrack shook the floor, setting Julian's teeth on edge. 

"Okay, no. No," Julian said, raising his voice. "Mute it." 

Vince turned around and looked at him, unconvinced. 

"I'll talk, all right?" Julian sat up straighter, then drained the last of his tea-tainted scotch. "About whatever you want. Just mute that fucking thing, please?"

The thumping bass cut off abruptly and Vince tossed the remote control aside, jumping to his feet and eagerly situating himself on the end of the sofa that was nearest Julian's armchair. He leaned forward, a grin pasted across his face, his bulbous eyes swallowing Julian up like a glittering camera lens. 

Julian tugged on an errant strand of his hair and shifted in discomfort. He'd never been good at interviews, and that's what this felt like. "Just sit back now, Tony Wilson," he cautioned. "I was agreeing to conversation, not interrogation."

"Conversation, that's what I'm doin'," Vince said, scooting away a mere inch or two. "Like two mates, yeah? One bushy of hair, the other bushy of brows."

Julian tensed, squeezing his hand into a fist and both hearing and feeling the knuckles go pop. His gut told him this was a bad idea, that it was going to take him to bad places -- places even worse than this one. His head, on the other hand, was too tired see what the big deal was; it was just a bit of idle talk between two, well, _familiar_ strangers. He leaned forward slightly and grabbed the bottle of scotch from his coffee table, pouring another hefty amount into his mug and bringing the liquor to his lips. When in doubt, drown everything out. He held out the bottle to Vince, and the other man added a modest amount to his own cup, then took a tiny, shuddering sip. 

"It burns," he gasped, smacking his lips with distaste. "From my ears to my toes." He made another sour face, then seemed to resign himself to poking his finger into the mug and licking it clean. "You and your matey Noel must drink a lot," he observed. "Seems I've drunk loads more than usual since I've been here."

"When occasion calls for it," Julian mumbled. 

"I reckon I can see why," Noel said slowly, stirring his tea with a finger again. "This world is confusing." 

"Why do you think we created yours?" Julian grunted shortly. It came carelessly from his lips, with no thought to his audience. And no thought to the truth, either, since until this very moment Julian hadn't considered the Mighty Boosh a retreat from his real life. What did he have to retreat from? It was just a bit of fun, just some splashing about in the comedy paddling pool. He frowned into his drink.

Vince had no response, at any rate; he simply scratched at the back of his neck, then stretched out his bare feet (the socks were gone) to rest them on the surface of the coffee table. It was the sort of tandem gesture Noel himself made often, sometimes knocking over beer bottles in the process, and it made Julian immediately avert his eyes. Not in pain or discomfort this time, but with a curious sort of awkwardness that very nearly bordered respect , as if Vince had suddenly decided to change his clothes in front of Julian without first announcing it.

Even so, Julian's gaze couldn't help but return to Vince, acclimating himself to the other man's presence and mannerisms -- all those sudden and unbidden Noel-echoes that went far beyond a shared taste for hairspray and electroclash. 

"Created it?" Vince shrugged. "So you say. Far as I'm concerned, you're just a pair of blokes lucky enough to glimpse it in dreams and slap it on paper."

Julian said nothing to this. He didn't want to argue. He didn't want to contemplate the possibility that what Vince said might be true. "This world wasn't so confusing yesterday," he finally said, sighing.

"Yeah?" Vince lifted his head, his nostrils flaring briefly, as if he'd caught wind of something. "What were you doing this time yesterday?"

Julian's memories rewound at an uneasy jitter. Yesterday seemed much longer ago than it ought to have been. "Drinking at an after party," he finally dug up.

"Drinking... 'course," Vince snorted, not much impressed. "After party for what?"

Julian hesitated, then decided that there was no use in lying or swaddling the truth. "Our live show. Noel and I have been on tour."

Vince rocked forward abruptly. "So, you are in a band?" he asked, his tone greedy and demanding. 

"No... no, not that. We go on stage as Howard and Vince. We act out... ah, an episode in their -- your lives."

" _No way._ " It was hard to tell if Vince was delighted or upset, his features simply geared into wild-eyed animation. "And people pay to see it? Instead of watching it on their tellies for nothin'?"

"Yeah," Julian said, then considered all the encounters he'd had back stage and at the after parties. "Some have even seen it four or five times."

Vince gawped at Julian, with a new respect, it seemed. "It's like..." He chewed around for the right words. "We're properly famous!"

Julian slouched in his chair and considered the wet, amber eye of his scotch. He didn't know who Vince meant. Noel and Julian? Vince and Howard? Any combination in between? Did it matter? 

"I guess so," he said reluctantly, taking another drink. "Famous at the moment, anyway."

Vince reflected on this for all of two seconds. 

"What's Noel like?" he asked, as if now considering his creator in a new and more favourable light. "He a quiet, thoughtful bloke, like you?"

Julian nearly spat out his liquor, but choked on it instead, coughing roughly. "Quiet?" he rasped, eyes watering. "No, he's not."

"Yeah? What's his story, then?"

"Look," Julian began. Second thoughts were beginning to creep up over him, even as the loose-lipped, hazy sensation of approaching inebriation fell over him like a warm and heavy scarf. "I'm not sure this is a good path for us to go down. This world is confusing -- like you said -- do you really want to make it worse?"

Vince crinkled his brow, smiling a little. "You don't like me much, do you?"

"What?"

"You don't like me much."

"No, I heard you." Julian frowned. "I -- we just met, right?" 

"You're the one who says you know everything about me, that you helped create me," Vince pointed out.. "So what is it, then? You like me or not?"

"You can't ask that!" Julian protested, hands tightening around his mug again. "You were abstract before and, and now you're sitting in front of me..." -- he looked Vince over "...and Noel's not. I like Noel. I like him a lot." His words were hurried now, fishing for explanation. "He's my best friend, and when I look at you it feels wrong, it's --"

"Didn't we go through this earlier?" Vince said lightly, sipping his scotch again. "Think I really wouldn't rather have Howard than you?" He sniffed and pushed his hair out of his eyes.

Julian couldn't be hurt at this -- hadn't he just admitted the same? "What are we supposed to do then?" he asked, shaking his head. 

Vince licked his lips, considering. "Tell me about yourself. You don't want to tell me about him, so what about you?" He snorted lightly, then pointed at the bottle of scotch. "You're clearly from Leeds, but what else?" 

"I... like what?" 

Vince looked as if he were thinking hard for a challenging question. It ended up being: "What's you're favourite colour?"

"I don't know... black? Brown? Olive?"

"Favourite band or musician?"

It was turning into an interview, but Julian suddenly didn't mind. It was much easier to be interrogated that to volunteer information. 

"Miles Davis," he said, then wavered. "No, Charlie Parker."

"You _are_ Howard!" Vince burst out. "Except grumpier and possibly just a wee bit less embarrassing."

Julian shrugged wordlessly.

Vince looked at him suspiciously. "Howard would have said 'how dare you' if I called him embarrassing to his face. You're not so easily ruffled." 

It sounded half-complimentary, and Julian tipped his mug at Vince in response. "Howard is frustrated when the world doesn't appreciate him, but I don't expect appreciation in the first place," he said, then made a face as soon as the words were out. He sounded like a cock, like someone using cynicism to hide what was actually arrogance. Was this how he usually sounded? 

"But the jazz and the wretched colours, that's all Howard. Hey, have you two ever crimped?"

"Have we ever...what?"

"Crimped," Vince repeated, making a 'come on' motion with his hand. "You know, stayed up late into the dark of the night and made up an alluring little song. Something about jacket potatoes or wellies or sad-faced rainclouds."

Julian was silent for a moment. He and Noel had never given a name to the silly a capella tunes that Vince and Howard sang. It was the only thing that Vince and Howard were equally good at, though, and now he knew that that thing was called _crimping_. "No," he told Vince. "We don't do that." His and Noel's silly little songs were not called _crimping_.

"Then what about..." Vince reached out and rubbed his hand up and down Julian's arm. 

The touch was unexpected, just surprising enough to give Julian the tiniest start. Then he relaxed and just watched the hand run over his arm, wondering what Vince was doing. 

"You don't mind that?" Vince asked, still rubbing Julian's arm as if a genie would appear

It felt good, actually -- comforting. Of course, it was becoming a bit weird now that it was clear Vince was expecting some kind of reaction.

"No?" Julian said, and Vince finally pulled away. "Should I?" 

Vince took him in again, as if seeing something new. "Well why does Howard have that thing about never being touched? You don't seem to care."

Oh, _that_.

"If you're friends with Noel, you learn not to care." At Vince's blank look, Julian went on: "He's a toucher, Noel is. Got his paws on everyone."

"Girls, too?" Vince's smile was lascivious.

"Yeah girls, and one in particular," Julian said, nearly smirking. "Don't think you're ready to make her acquaintance just yet."

"Wow, girls! Imagine that. I mean, I've had my fair share too, went for the gothic threeway once," Vince said, leaning back into a cushion, his odd, bulging cheekbones catching the light.

"Mmm right," Julian said. "I remember." 

Vince sat up. "Don't tell me that was in your telly show?"

Julian met the other man's eyes. "All right, I won't tell you." 

"Get lost!" Vince protested. "That was a private moment, that was. If those two goth birds find out there's a sex tape of us three floating around, they'll snatch me bald-headed and prise out my eyeteeth."

"There's not a sex tape," Julian said, his patience discarded so easily it might well have been a peanut shell or a bit of lint. "You didn't have sex with the goth girls, they mocked you and Howard's lack of sorcery and had it off with Bollo and Naboo instead." 

Vince's face screwed up, and he sputtered for a moment before finding words. "You'd know that, wouldn't you? You're some kind of sorcerer yourself, are you? A weaver of black magic and the funky voodoo? Maybe that's how you brought me and Howard here in the first place, with some kind of jazzy-cadabra." 

"Would you stop thinking that way?" Julian stood up at the same moment Vince did, and fought the urge to push the other man back down into his seat. Luckily, his height advantage made that urge largely unnecessary. "Start thinking like a...like a fucking person, okay? There's no sorcery or voodoo. There's no Bollo and Naboo. There's only you and me and no one's gonna help us!" His hair fell into his eyes and his cheeks went hot. Let Vince be scared -- he should be. "No one," he repeated.

For a moment, Vince looked so stricken, so very nearly wounded, that Julian almost said _Sorry, Noel_. He looked away, instead. 

"Heyyyy," Vince said, recovering in a blink and giving Julian a light shrug to the shoulder. "None of that grim nonsense. We can work it out, you and me, we've just got to get synchronised!"

"That's for wrist-watches," Julian said without emotion.

"We've got to get on the same page, get into the beat, get going on the same step." Vince gave him a quick eye up and down. "That could be hard if you've got Howard's short-leg problem, but I'll sort it, I'll just wear one platform instead of two, haha." 

Julian closed his eyes. He was achingly, painfully tired. "What are you talking about now?"

"Your telly show 'bout me and Howard. Got it on dvd?" Vince was already heading in the direction of the television set.

"No," Julian lied.

"I reckon I need to see how you two see us, you know? See how your mind's been making up mine." He crouched down and started to look through the built-in shelves that lined the wall behind the television set, where dvds, vhs tapes, and books were all stacked together in a disorganized _ménage à trois_. 

"There's no dvd there," Julian piped up, his heartbeat swelling in his throat. He found himself hoping that Vince couldn't read -- had the show ever said either way? Sure, he'd written those Charlie books, but that didn't have to mean anything. Even blind people were known to paint with watercolours and play the piano beautifully.

"Is this it?" Vince held up a black boxed-set of dvds, still wrapped in the manufacturer's plastic. "That's our logo -- the zoo's logo, I mean. I came up with it meself."

"No," Julian said, coming closer and removing the dvds from Vince's hand, then placing them on a much higher shelf. "That's not it." 

"This, then?" Vince plucked out another dvd with astonishing speed -- one that Julian had honestly forgotten he'd ever owned. It was a free promotional copy, just like the box-set "And you can't say no this time, I know my own face when I see it. And Howard's, even when it's all covered in frosty old man winter."

"Give that to me." Julian snatched the series 1 dvd from Vince's hand, but Vince was quick and grabbed hold of his arm before he could throw it up on the top-most shelf like he had with the other.

"I wanna see!" he complained, using all his body weight to draw Julian's arm down. "What's the big deal?"

"Nothing!" Julian said, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt. "I've just got a bad feeling about this, okay?" 

"Yeah? Who are you now, Bollo?"

"We can't go mucking about, making things more confusing and mixed up than they already are. We've got to just -- " Julian broke off as Vince twisted his arm in a more painful way. "Stop!"

Vince gave him a fierce look, and Julian suddenly felt like he was fighting over the last ball in the play yard, where such scraps were more about rivalry and one-upmanship than the actual ball.

"Why won't you let me see it?" Vince demanded, his liquory-breath warming Julian's neck.

"You only want to see it because I won't let you!"

They scuffled wordlessly for a few moments, not in anything resembling violence, but both trying to exert their own will over the other, lamely and with little effect. Vince continued to cling to Julian's arm like a barnacle, and Julian was too drunk, to fearful of the situation, to shake him loose completely. Instead, he pulled away just enough to keep Vince from getting what he wanted, and hoped that eventually, the other man would tire and give up.

"Come on," Vince breathed, his fingers scrabbling over the plastic dvd case. "Let me..."

His head bowed low enough for his hair to brush against Julian's bare arm, and his hip pressed sharply into Julian's thigh, like he was trying to budge a stubborn door open. Julian tried to move away, but he was already backed into the corner of the room, and too large to tuck himself any further into it. Vince shifted and reached again; the weight pressing against Julian ought to have been insubstantial, but it wasn't. It seared through his body and everything seemed to slow down except for his heart, which beat a painful path up to his throat. 

"Let go," he croaked. His face felt like a cooked sausage, hot and near to burst. Everything seemed as if it were near to bursting. 

"No," Vince countered. " _You_ let go."

Even though he was breathing -- quite normally, at that, despite a little old-man pant here and there -- Julian felt like he was running out of air. "I can't," he said, and it was nearly a wheeze.

"Give it," Vince said, hassled but not completely without cheer. For him, this was a good bit of fun. "I wanna see how you've made us look, Julian."

It was the first time Vince had called him by name. And he _was_ Julian -- Julian only, trembling with sick fear and divine happiness at the very first claps that preceded a rousing round of applause. He was Julian and Howard, his eyes screwed tightly shut as he lay back in his armchair with trumpets wailing from the speakers. He was Howard but mostly Julian, waiting behind the curtain with Noel. He was Noel, who knew that there would be ten seconds that would belong to them alone, just before the curtain rose. Noel only, who was supposed to wait for Julian to bend down and pretend to kiss him, but who instead wrapped his arms low around Julian's waist, and pulled the taller man close, stealing his moment when he could, and was content with stolen moments alone. Moments so wrapped up in giddiness and champagne toasts that there would be no questions afterwards, only a tolerance that was the next best thing to reciprocation.

He was Julian, and Julian wanted to touch Vince and find Noel.

_"Why does Howard have that thing about never being touched?"_

Vince pivoted and came at the dvd from another angle, his breath slightly laboured as his elbow pried into Julian's side. "Come on," he repeated, the plee edged with a tiny, oblivious giggle. "Oi, you're strong."

_Because the more I'm touched, the more I realise that I'm all alone here in this body. That you're alone in yours. That there's only one way for us to be known._

Julian's cock stiffened in his trousers. He was Julian with Vince, and he wanted to turn just enough, so that his erection would be pressed fully against Vince's side. He wanted to beg Vince to touch it, to stroke it with the circle of his thumb and forefinger. He wanted to feel Vince's mouth against his own, to taste his tongue and feel teeth nip at his lips. He wanted to see how his come looked against the pallor of Vince's skin. He wanted Vince's fingers -- one, two, three or more of them -- inside him, reaching past all the lies that he had made both of them believe. He wanted so many things, but he knew acutely that he didn't really want them with Vince. As Julian only, he wanted them with Noel. 

But what he really wanted was to be Julian without denial and fears, and he didn't know how to be that person when he was with Noel. But maybe with Vince, he would learn how.

He whispered a word, and Vince closed the slight distance between them to catch it. What that word was, neither of them heard, because just then the church bells sounded. Twelve deep, mournful chimes that sounded like someone calling _here, here, here_.

Vince lifted his head and looked around the room. "What's that?" he asked, in the voice of someone who'd just woken up. 

Julian looked down at the bulge in his trousers, but Vince wasn't talking about that. 

"Bells?" Vince took another step from Julian and moved toward a window. "Church bells." 

Slowly, Julian slid down the wall he was pressed against, nearly laughing when he felt a trickle of sweat escape his hairline and wet his temple. Relief and profound disappointment filled him with a derelict intensity. His chance had turned into a pumpkin.

"You live by a church?" Vince asked, spinning around to face him. His expression indicated that he thought churches ranked up there with Atlantis in terms of rarity. Julian studied him through watery eyes and thought of how little Vince knew, and how little he would be able to ever learn. Even less, maybe, than him. 

"I live by a church," he said. "A church I've never walked by. I hear the bells from it every day and I've still never walked by it." 

Vince stared at him. "Why not?" 

"I don't know," Julian said, then swallowed. "I've been putting it off. For some reason." He looked away, frowning at a thought that wouldn't quite come.

"I reckon we ought to do that now, then," Vince said, grinning. Even in the dimly-lit room, the bright blue of his eyes showed -- Julian thought that they must see the world differently than his own. He even wondered what they saw, then realised that he would never know.

"Okay," Julian said, then sniffed hard and snorted out a laugh. "Okay." He took Vince's extended hand, clambering to his feet inelegantly. 

It was only when he had straightened up that he dropped the hand, and even then it was only because Vince made a strange noise -- something that could have been a weird laugh or a yelp -- then folded at the waist and fell to his knees, like someone who had just taken a punch to the gut. Then he made a noise again, and it wasn't a laugh or even a yelp, it was just a scream.


	7. part seven

  
**A Journey Through Time and Space**

***

part seven   


"Sorry. This is getting weird, isn't it?"

"No, no, it's not the least bit weird At least that's what I used to tell myself every time you -- er, Vince -- insisted on jumping into your sleeping bag naked."

Noel smiled against the reassuring bulk of Howard's shoulder. "Did I -- he -- really sleep naked?" 

"Like a true, uncivilised jungle child. Mowgli refusing to wear his flares."

"Heh, that's pretty good. What else did he do?"

"Er, I might be wrong, but shouldn't you know? I mean, if you really are who you say you are." 

"I suppose so. I was just trying to keep you talking."

Every time Howard spoke, it rumbled against Noel's cheek. A sleepy engine sound, chugga chugga. His hands hadn't moved from the neutral territory of Noel's bare upper back, but every now and again his fingers moved in very slight, restless circles. Feeling them cycle up again, Noel closed his eyes and waited for something. He didn't know what for -- a fade to black? The final curtain? A dizzying tunnel of light from above? Below?

"Look, I know you're a needy sort of person," Howard engine-rumbled. "Always popping feathers in your boots to compete with the peacocks. But this isn't like you, is it? You, you're made of sunshine and sequins. So what's this, um, not _weird_ but unusually prolonged hug all about?"

Noel knew Howard was talking about Vince again, but he didn't interrupt or correct him this time. He just sighed and eased his hold on the other man, then tipped his head back and finally looked into Howard's face: it was scrunched up in concern, the sort of face that seemed made for enduring confessions. "It's a long explanation, but if you --"

He never finished because Howard suddenly grunted and leaned into him, groaning in pain. Then he _really_ leaned into him, and his body out-weighed Noel's by enough that they both fell clumsily to the ground, Howard emitting a wheezing gasp when he hit both the floor and Noel. 

"Jesus!" Noel said, slightly pinning to the ground and more than slightly taken aback. Howard's hair fell into his face, brushing against his forehead, and for a moment Noel had a startling, up-close view of his features: the delicate lines laced around his eyes; his drawn-back lips and the surprisingly sharp, gritted teeth that they revealed. Then Howard rolled off of him, curling his body into a C-shape as he clutched at his side, huffing and moaning.

Noel propped himself up on his elbows, watching. "Hey, are you all right, Howard?"

Noel saw that he was not. Fresh blood showed between Howard's fingers, so red and real that Noel was momentarily dazed by it. Where could it possibly have come from? Noel reached for the other man's shirt-tail, planning to yank the garment up and see what the hell had just happened, but before he could do so there was an odd, shimmering flicker from the middle of Howard's chest, like a heartbeat flared to life. Then, the shimmering thing scampered up and over Howard's shoulder, its tongue flicking in a decidedly mocking fashion.

"You!" Noel burst out. After a floundering moment, he threw himself into a sort of crawl-chase across the floor, sharp bits and bobs of detritus biting into his kneecaps as he lunged for the thing. He managed to grab its back leg just before it made an escape out the door, then held the writhing, whipping creature up. Its powerful tail swished back and forth, still bloody at the tip, where it had thrust into Howard's side. 

"What the fuck are you playing at?" Noel yelled.

The chameleon stopped struggling and just dangled there -- smugly, it seemed. 

"Well?" Noel shook it. Behind him, he could hear Howard moaning softly. 

_It's for the best_ Jenny said, her eyes reeling around like marbles.

"Who asked you? And who are you to go jabbing your tail into people like some alien off _Doctor Who_? That's just freakish and disgusting."

_I'm here to ease your transition_ , the chameleon said, repeating her words from earlier in the evening. 

"Oh, I'm so very at ease." Noel squeezed the reptile, grimly satisfied when it thrashed its little legs and seemed to panic.

_I try to help you and you brutalise me again! For the third time!_

"Third time's the charmer," said Noel, feeling mean and savouring it.

Howard moaned again and Noel involuntarily loosened his grip. He looked away from Jenny, craning his neck so he could see Howard's huddled figure on the other side of the room, a fist crammed in his mouth as if to block off oncoming agony. "Howard, keep pressure on the wound, yeah?"

"Vince? Oh, I thought you'd left..." Howard's voice sounded hazy, muffled by his own knuckles. "Please don't leave, Vince."

"Noel," Noel muttered before returning his attention to the chameleon. "You keep saying you're helping me, but why? What are you gettin' out of this scene? All the grubs and crickets you can eat?"

The chameleon said nothing, and for the first time Noel sensed that he had hit on something that the creature did not want him to know. "Tell me," he prompted, flexing his fingers just enough for it to be a threat.

_Okay, okay!_ the thing squealed. _I get to be a part of it, that's what._

"A part of what?"

_This universe, the new one._

Noel pressed his mouth into a thin line. "This universe. Right. The one that you claim my script has created." He shivered involuntarily, still feeling Jenny's pin-like claws tip-toe across his neck, still hearing her whisper that little grim detail into his ear. 

_That_ you've _created._

At that pointed correction, Noel fought the urge to peel the reptile like a banana. "Whatever. There's no fucking chameleon anywhere in that script," he snapped.

_Not yet, but there will be a part for someone._

"So?"

_So it could be me. Or me. Or me, or me. Or me..._

Noel jumped, and then, quite like someone who'd unwisely taken something from the oven with his bare hands, vaulted the reptile across the room in a startled reflex. Jenny's voice had changed every time she said "or me," sounding like Mike, then Dave, then Rich, then Richard, then Matt, and on and on, each voice instantly recognisable.

After grabbing hold of the breath that had been shocked clean out of him, he finally shouted "I don't believe you!" into the mish-mashed hut landscape that Jenny had disappeared into. All of his friends already had spots in _The Mighty Boosh_ , some of them practically against their will, so why would they ever fight over a part that didn't even exist? 

In response to his shout, the chameleon crept out from behind an over-turned crate and a pile of furry something-or-other. From somewhere behind Noel, Howard's breathing sounded more laboured.

_You think there's actually something left to not believe in?_

Noel crept toward her, slowly, to show that he meant no harm. "Yeah," he said, licking his lips. "Leprechauns. Too annoying to be believed." 

The chameleon flashed through a flurry of colours, a rainbow of indecision. _Your sense of humour's coming back_ , she finally noted. _That's good, at least --_

Before the reptile could finish, Noel grabbed the nearby crate and slammed it down, trapping her. She scrabbled wildly against the sides of her new gaol, making an ear-twanging, high-pitched noise. 

"I'm tired of having to listen to your jawin'." Noel looked around for something heavy to put on top the crate. A trumpet in a leather case -- Howard's, was it? -- leaned against a wall, and he stretched his arm out towards it, careful to keep one hand pressed down on the crate. When he finally dragged the trumpet case across the floor, he found it not terribly heavy, but more than heavy enough to keep a chameleon from escaping. He put the trumpet on top the crate and backed away, watching warily until a wheezing breath from Howard reminded him of more pressing matters, and he whisked over to the other man's side. 

"Come on Howard, let me see," he said, trying to coax Howard's hands away from the wound he was protecting. With minimal struggle, Howard moved his hands and allowed Noel to pull up his shirt. He then lifted his head, breathing hard through his nose, and looked down at his own torso as if expecting to see his guts strewn about, perhaps even tied into a jaunty little bow. It was nothing so serious as that, but the wound was pretty bad and just on this side of disgusting. It looked deep and black, like any puncture, but the blood had slowed to a trickle. What worried Noel more was how fiery-red the skin surrounding the wound was, as if already touched by infection.

After reassuring Howard one more time that no, he wasn't leaving him, Noel stood up and looked around for something clean to press against the wound, a flannel or a handkerchief. He finally resorted to pulling one of Vince's tee-shirts from the wardrobe and, without bothering to check out what colourful slogan or artwork was printed on it, folding it into a square bandage. 

"Hold this to it," he said, pressing the shirt to the wound and sounding as if he trusted his own advice far more than he actually did. He was no Florence Nightingale. Nor was he clothed, so he stood up and found the trousers he'd discarded, trying to discreetly step into them.

"It hurts," Howard said, rolling over just in time to see Noel do the sort of hopping-shuffle that was inevitable when donning skin-sheathing jeans. He ignored Noel's state, his eyes revealing the depth of shock he was experiencing, and Noel knew that probably nothing in his life had ever hurt like this before. In seeing his obvious pain, a discomfort that had nothing to do with tight jeans came to life and did an uneasy shimmy through Noel's belly.

"I know," Noel said. "Do you want some gin? There might be some left around here." 

"What, to clean the wound? I don't know if that'll do any good, it just hurts."

Noel's nose and eyes began to itch, and he doubted there was anything that could make him feel more helpless than he did right now. "What do you want me to do?" 

Howard reached out for Noel's hand and missed, so Noel grabbed hold of it.

"Make it stop," he said. "Could you just, you know...?"

He said it like Noel ought to know how to make it all end, but Noel didn't. 

"You're going to be okay," he said, his voice a shade higher than usual. "It's not even bleeding anymore, and I don't think you have any organs over here," he said, lightly touching the covered injury. "Uh, maybe a kidney. But you got another one of those, right?" He felt awful, aiming for a joke at a time like this, but it seemed he couldn't help himself. 

Howard looked vaguely enlightened through his pain, his whole face lifting in a way that reminded Noel of a hopeful stray dog. "I'm not dying?"

"At a time like this? No way." He gave Howard what he hoped was a brilliant, confident smile. "You're not set to swim the English Channel or anything, but you'll live."

"But I saw it...."

"Saw what?" Noel asked, feeling his eyebrows frown.

"My pre-death picture show. You and me and us and all our..." he trailed off briefly, seeming fatigued. "....times," he finished. "The Chinese horseshoe and the slippy-snake."

"The...huh?"

"U and S. The, you know, the Us times, Vince."

Howard touched Noel's hand with clammy, stained fingers, and Noel found himself wishing he really was Vince, if only to make Howard feel better. 

"Yeah, the Us times," he said, his inflection giving the word its capitalisation. "Those were pretty good." He cleared his throat. "Reckon we ought to have more of them, yeah?" He gave Howard a playful, but gentle, nudge. "So crawl out of your grave before the worms start gearing up for pinochle."

"I'm really not dying?" Howard's eyelashes fluttered, and Noel would have snickered, had the situation not been so nearly-serious. Howard was acting like a vapour-stricken lady who'd been led to a plushy fainting couch. 

"No. You've got too much to give, right?"

"But I'm bleeding," Howard said, looking at the red smears on his hand. "Have I ever bled before?" 

"We all bleed, Howard," Noel said. 

With eyes that seemed clearer, Howard looked at Noel, then down at his wound again, lifting the bloodied tee-shirt just enough to get a quick glimpse of it. 

"Oh dear," he said, sounding more impressed than distressed now. "Well, I certainly do bleed, much like any hero slain in the line of duty, but I wonder if the same could be said of you, Vince." He gave Noel a skeptical glance, barely able to tear his eyes away from his now-noble wound. "I can just see you bleeding something impractical, like fizzy cola."

Noel shrugged, aware that he was in a position where he could do nothing but humour Howard in his refusal to see Noel for who he really was.

"Fizzy cola might feel nicer coming out in great spouting torrents, at least," he said, with what he hoped would pass for a smile. "Bit ticklish, I imagine."

"I can assure that this doesn't at all tickle, Vince," Howard said, grimacing. "What happened, anyway? I didn't see the culprit, but to judge by the wound I'd guess he was brandishing a very large and dangerous bowie knife."

"Bowie knife?"

"Yeah, It's a bladed weapon that has nothing to do with David Bowie."

"Oh, hah, right," Noel said weakly. _And it's nothing to do with killer chameleons, either._ "Looks like you've got your sense of humour back, though. That's good, right? Doesn't hurt as badly?"

"It hurts like a motherbitch, but I'm made of stern stuff, yes sir. You can't slow down Hailstorm Howard. He rains the pain."

"Right, hailstorm," Noel said, unable to quell a smirk. "If you're so stern let's get your weather-beaten self to the sofa, yeah? You shouldn't lie about on the floor in your state."

"All right," Howard said, giving Noel both of his hands. It took some careful manoeuvering to get Howard to his feet, and at one point he let out a sharp cry and nearly went down again. When Noel came in close to help hold him upright, he saw that a visible sheen of sweat had developed on Howard's forehead, and he could feel the heat rolling off the other man’s body, more like fever than mere exertion.

"It's okay, I've got you," he reassured. It didn't matter that other man's heft was more than he could hold, should he collapse again.

"I think I can manage," Howard panted, taking a few shaky steps towards the sofa. "Thank god the bowie bandit didn't get me in the legs, they're my best feature."

Noel swallowed a giggle. "There now, ease on down," he said, holding on to Howard's shoulders as the other man slowly lowered himself onto the sofa. Once he was safely sat down, Noel gave him an awkward little pat and straightened up. Then, from just behind the sofa, he saw something that made his breath freeze all at once, air stuck in his throat like a cocktail olive. 

The crate that he had thrown over Jenny and secured with a trumpet case was now turned on its side, and prisoner Jenny nowhere to be seen.

" _Shit_."

"Eh? What's wrong?" Howard asked.

"Nothing. Stay here," Noel said, making a slow circle of the hut. Every now and then, he moved away a chair or lifted up a cushion to peer under it, but he saw no signs of the reptile, just plenty of banana peels and tea bags.

"Where would I be likely to go?" asked Howard, watching him with little concern. "Other than a cafe, maybe. I'm starving. Is there anything to eat in the cabinets? Even a twiglet or something?"

"Shhhh," Noel said, lifting his head and listening for those telltale, clicking claws. At first he heard nothing but Howard's impatient shifting, but further beneath that, there was something like a shuffle coming from behind the front door. Without stopping to consider that the noise could be due to something as simple as the wind, Noel lunged for the door and yanked it open so hard that, had he been larger, he might've caused structural damage. As it was, the force of his movement simply blew his hair backwards, but it was the sight of what was behind the door itself that sent him three whole steps in the same direction, not stopping until his tailbone bumped painfully against a chair. 

Someone was there, his fist poised to knock. 

"Hi," Noel's brother said. 

No, it wasn't Mike, it was Naboo. Naboo, looking rather severe in his goth leather-daddy shaman outfit, but definitely Naboo. Noel tried hard to keep himself upright, but it was like trying to balance himself on a plate of jelly.

"Urhum?" he managed, while Howard limped over to the door, suddenly spry where Noel was not, and made a noise that sounded faintly gleeful.

"Naboo! Oh, thank god you've come. As you can see, I could really use a shaman's touch here."

"Ring up Tony, then. He's all tentacles," Naboo said, then looked at Noel, his expression as unreadable as ever. 

"I, um..." Noel tried.

"Yeah, I already know," said Naboo. "You're Noel."

***

Julian didn't often see people scream -- not for their lives, anyway -- and as such didn't really know what to do when they started up. So he just stood there with his mouth dropped open, watching as Vince flopped from side to side like a carp wrestling with a hook. When the reality of Vince's noise finally sunk in -- he sounded like he was in fierce pain, _really_ in pain -- Julian finally moved to action.

"What is it? What? What?" He dropped to his knees, hands held out but not quite touching the other man. He felt like he was watching someone who was possessed, and even drew back a little, expecting a projectile of pea soup.

Vince didn't reply, but his screams did trail off to a sort of high-pitched whimper, which then turned into a breathy chant of _owowowowow_.

"Are you all right? What the hell's wrong with you?" Julian dared to reach out and touch Vince, and the other man flinched, his breath hissing. He was favouring his side, clutching at it like his bones were about to clatter out. "Come on there, let me see," Julian said, more gently this time. Carefully, he managed to lift Vince's hand away.

"S'it gushing blood?" Vince asked, his eyes screwed up tight. "Oh god, have I been rendered hideous and deformed? I don't want to look."

"I don't see anything," Julian said. "Lift your top." 

With the hesitation of a kid removing a plaster in the worst way possible, Vince slowly pulled up his shirt. Julian's eyes grazed over his torso, searching out anything unusual. There was just a lot of pale, unblemished skin -- acres of it, it seemed.

"There's nothing," he finally said, after a long moment in which his thoughts were nearly pulled in an entirely different direction.

"Wot?" Vince squeaked, lifting his head to look down at himself. "But there has to be! Feels like I've been the victim of a tremendous stab-up."

"Really now?" Julian would have been doubtful, had there not been a slight, scratchy jag to Vince's voice that recalled the raw awfulness of his screams. "I guess be grateful that you got away without so much as a scratch, then?" he suggested, more kindly this time.

"But it really hurts," Vince said, his voice cracking with validity. "Throbbing, like." 

Julian shook his head. "I don't know what to tell you. I can't help you if I don't know what's been done to you." 

"Find the gapin' hole in my side that I know has got to be there, then!" Vince said, his face going red with the force of his shrill demand. 

"Whoa now," Julian said, coming slowly to his feet. "Let's just get you a glass of water, shall we?" 

With addled thoughts -- what was happening _now_? and why? -- he fetched up the mug that Vince had been drinking tea and scotch from and went to the kitchen to fill it with water. When he came back, Vince was leaning against the side of the sofa, his shirt still rucked up around his armpits. 

"Here," Julian said, passing the mug over. 

Vince took a sip, watching him over the rim, then swallowed and looked the mug over suspiciously, licking his already wet lips. "What's this? Charles Mingus? Why's this mug say Charles Mingus?"

Julian stared at him. "Because it's a Charles Mingus mug? A friend got it for me off eBay." That friend, in fact, had been Noel, who, aside from his occasional digs at Julian's taste, was actually quite good at playing up to it. 

"God, no wonder I feel so hideous," Vince moaned, flinging the mug aside. It went rolling under the coffee table, water cascading all over the rug. 

"Hey! What are you doing?" Julian picked the mug up and giving him a dirty look. He felt like a grumpy gran, but really -- who threw mugs about, especially when they were mostly full?

"I drank tea out of that thing!" Vince said, pointing at the sopping puddle of water he'd made. "Now I've got jazz all up inside me, it's floating around me belly, pinching like poison."

Julian shook his head in disbelief. "You're a mentalist," he said, placing the mug safely out of Vince's reach. "It's probably a hernia or something."

"Hernia!" Vince squeaked. "What's that? I won't be havin' it!"

"It's a..." Julian began, then paused. He was pretty sure Vince would be sent into question-overdrive by even the simplest description of human anatomy. "Noel had one, once, and you're in his body now, so you'll have to put up with everything it's been through."

Vince took a long time sussing this, biting down on his lip in either doubt or discomfort. Finally, he said: "So has his body ever had an adverse reaction to jazz? You know... hives, blinders, or wrenching rib-cramps? That sort of thing."

Julian sighed and pressed his lips together. "No, it hasn't. I keep telling you, but you're not getting it. That sort of thing doesn't happen here. You can't be poisoned by a mug that just so happens to reference something that you find strange and off-putting."

"Yeah, and what do you make of this, then?" Vince asked, tilting his head from one side to another, as if too weary to hold it up. "Is this the sort of place where you wake up in a body that looks just like your own, only to find out that it belongs to someone else who's been running about town copying you like it's fancy-dress time?"

"Even if you're right, which you're not," Julian said, pointing for unnecessary emphasis, "It just so happens that Noel doesn't hate jazz, which means he doesn't copy you, right? Jazz may not be up there with his favourites, but his body would never have some kind of melodramatic fit over it." He looked Vince over with a twinge of disgust; it seemed impossible that, just moments ago, he'd been entertaining rosy-coloured fantasies in which he took sips out of the same mug those lips had touched.

"Yeah but you said yourself that it's _his_ body I'm trapped in, and whether it's the fault of toxic jazz or not, this body's been done an injury! An invisible one, yeah, but it's there." Vince pointed at the wet spot he'd made by tossing the mug. "Look at that! Invisible blood."

"That's water," Julian said, making a pained face in effort to hang on to what was left of his wits. "Look, I can see that you're hurt, but I just... I'm fucking without a clue here. So I'm going to call for a mini-cab." Julian reached for the rarely-used phone that was mounted on the wall that separated the lounge from the kitchen. "We'll just get you to casualty and get you looked over by a doctor." 

"Wot? No way, I don't want no doctor poking at me."

Julian ignored him, punching in memorised numbers and waiting for the operator to pick up. 

"Oi! You listenin' to me, gimmer-ears? I said I don't want no doctor!"

Julian turned his back on Vince and took the phone into the kitchen, calmly giving the operator his address. 

"NO DOCTOR, YEAH?"

Stomping out of the kitchen, Julian slammed the telephone receiver back into its cradle and turned on Vince with a singular fury. "Keep it down to a dull roar, you lunatic! I've got neighbours!" They hadn't heard Vince screaming the first time, of course, but Julian hadn't been worried about that, then. Now he was all anxious and plucked up, sweat pooling by the gallon in the small of his back. 

"I'll shout for them to come help me if you drag me off to doctors," Vince said, his head peeking out absurdly from behind the sofa where he had hidden himself. 

"Why don't you want to see a doctor?" Julian burst out, nearly mad with frustration. "You said you were poisoned by jazz! Bleeding invisible blood!"

"Why do _you_ want me to see a doctor?" Vince countered.

"To shut you up, mostly!"

At that, Vince shrank behind the couch even further, so that only his eyes and a wayward, bird-like fluff of hair showed. "That's what I thought! You've got something diabolical up your sleeve, yeah? Well you can just put your sleeve away, cos I'm staying right here 'til Howard shows up again."

"Diabolical?" Julian couldn't help but sneer. "That's a big word, considering the mouth it's just come out of."

"Yeah? Well, I seen what sort of crazy feats those doctors and scientists get up to. You want your mate back, don't you? You're gonna crack open the top of me head, shake me out with a heave-ho and jam him back in, like stuffing into a roast goose."

Bit by bit, Julian's anger, previously so solid and real, was giving way to soupy confusion. Not even in his most chemically-altered frenzies had Noel ever spouted such nonsense, unless it was meant as just that: nonsense.

"You're wrong about that," Julian said, trying to sound mild as he inched in Vince's direction, hands held out like the police did when they tried to talk someone off a ledge. "I mean, yeah, I want Noel back, but I can't seem to do anything about it at the moment. Certainly nothing that would involve a roast goose."

Tufts of hair bounced as Vince nodded hard. "That's why you want a doctor to do it for you."

A fresh tide of fury swept through Julian. "I'm trying to help you!" he bellowed "What have I got to do to get you to see how it is?" With the sofa in reach now, Julian picked up a cushion and started swatting Vince on the head with it, like someone trying to squash a persistent insect. Vince gave a little squeak and tried to roll out of the way, but Julian was quicker. He came down to his knees and straddled the other man's torso, using his inner-thighs to lock Vince in place while still being mindful of actually sitting on him. 

"Geroff me!" Vince shouted. "You'll pop me like a boot blister!"

"GAH, shut up!" Julian stuffed the cushion into Vince's face, pressing down hard to block out his bluster and noise. He had done the same thing to Noel once, during an argument that had turned into a physical tussle involving more unintentional closeness than actual violence. Like Noel had, Vince tried to flail under him, but his invisible injury must have kept him from fighting too hard, and he soon went limp as a wet sock.

Julian whipped the cushion away. Beneath it, Vince's face was fruity-pink, his eyes so wide they were bulbous. He made a croaking sound, then blinked hard several times. 

"Uck," he said. "Aggressive much, thunderdome?"

"You wouldn't let up," Julian said, feeling a flush of guilt. Carefully, he tucked the cushion back into the sofa.

Vince looked up at him for a moment, still catching his breath. "You're stronger than I thought," he finally said, between bouts of panting. "And sort of scary."

"I am not," said Julian, frowning. 

"You are. You should run with the bulls in Spain. Get cosy with a kangaroo, teach it some moves." Vince rolled his head to one side and coughed harshly, then rolled it back and looked up at him again. This time, though, instead of looking fearful or suspicious, he was vaguely admiring. "You're like what Howard..." he meandered off and coughed once more.

"I'm what?" Julian's frown deepened.

"You're like what Howard thinks he is."

Julian's frown went slack as he stared at the other man. "You don't know what you're talking about," he finally said. Howard thought he was Charlton Heston, except maybe with a trumpet or a field guide instead of a gun. Then again, Heston probably owned a field guide or two.

"A man of action," Vince said decisively, then shifted with little gasp. "Ow."

"Oh, sorry." Julian hurriedly dismounted the other man and stood up, resting his hind-quarters on the back of the sofa. "Have we gotten past the hysterics, then?"

Vince half sat up, his unblinking eyes still regarding Julian as if he were a force to be reckoned with. "Yeah, make no mistake -- you've put the fear into me."

Julian had thought it was fear that had made Vince unreasonable and hysterical to begin with, but he wasn't about to point this out. 

"I'd better not let Howard find out about this," Vince went on, cupping his chin in thought. "If he finds out you're strong and scary, he'll start to get ideas."

"Will he?" said Julian. "How terrifying."

A little of his reverence must have been chipped away with that barb, because Vince glared at him anew. "Yeah, he'll start acting like you, bossy britches! I can't have that. Our whole relationship hangs in a delicate balance where I'm in charge and he doesn't know it."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure he knows it," Julian said, standing up from the sofa and turning his back on Vince. With the toe of his shoe, he daubed at the invisible blood on the rug. "Especially if he let you hack off his moustache," he added, reaching up to touch his cheek and annoyed to find it still mostly-smooth.

"Hack? Get lost, I've got a B-tech National." 

"You got rid of the thing, didn't you?" 

"Heh, yeah, I reckon I did." Vince tilted his head in a new, considering way. "Hey, so does that mean that your mate Noel's in charge of you?"

Julian turned around sharply. "No."

"Ahh, so it's all about you and your bossy britches, then?"

"We're partners," Julian clarified. "A double-act. Neither of us is in charge."

"Yeah?" Vince's smirk nearly reached his eyebrows. "And if he tried to take charge I bet you'd rape him with a sofa cushion."

"I wouldn't do anything! And neither would Noel..." But even as he said the words, Julian felt the lie in them. Felt himself punching Noel in the face, his knuckles exploding in pain and satisfaction. Felt the weight of that idiotic script in his lap, burning its betrayal into his knees. 

That was the last time he'd seen Noel, in this universe, anyway: as a monster. 

_You fucking little cunt. Why?_

But Noel wasn't a monster. He was just fully and stupidly human, and Julian should have let him answer before he'd launched at him like a mad missile. He knew that now, if nothing else.

Julian pressed his face against the nearest wall, the kiss of the cold plaster making him feel more alone than ever. "Are you meant to be my conscience, then?"

Vince smiled with dim wattage. "Your what?"

"The voice of reason." Julian lifted his head from the wall and faced Vince, who was positioned near the windows; light from the street had crept through the curtains to feast upon him, making him the only bright thing in the room. Julian found himself wishing he would stop looking at Vince and expecting to see Noel there. He wanted to just put his eyes down like a pair of binoculars, then lock them up inside a drawer. "I always thought the voice of reason would have more...reasonable hair."

Vince started to chuckle, then gulped it back immediately and brought his hands up to his hair, his mouth dropping open in alarm. "My hair! I've not had a look at it in hours! It'll need serious tending!" He bounded to his feet and, with astonishing speed, began to zip from room to room, erratic as a pinball. "Where's a mirror? For flip's sake, ain't you got a mirror?"

"To your right," Julian said, unable to tear his eyes away from such a frenetic display. Vince tumbled into the bathroom and Julian followed, positioning himself in the doorway while the other man used his fingers to stir his mane higher than a meringue. 

"What happened to your injury?" Julian asked. Vince's movements looked unencumbered and pain-free.

"Eh?" Vince looked down at himself, then experimentally prodded his side. "I dunno, it feels better." 

Julian gave a perfunctory grunt. "How's that possible? You were wailing like a siren just a bit ago."

"Well, it still complains if I push it really hard," Vince said, squeezing at his side until his face went red with the strain of it. Then he exhaled and eased up, smiling. "I just heal really fast, like Sammy the Skillet." 

"Mmm," Julian said, non-committally. Vince _had_ been screaming in pain, of that he was fairly certain, but the invisible nature of his injury, paired with the miraculous and speedy recovery, left him unsettled. Having irrational things happen in the Zooniverse-world was one thing, but to have them spread fast and thick into the world that he thought he knew was quite another. 

Before he could worry any further, a car horn sounded from outside. 

"That'd be the mini-cab," he said. 

Vince shrugged. "Reckon we don't need it anymore." 

"Yeah, we do. There's some place else I want to go tonight." 

He slipped his hand into his trousers pocket and felt for the hotel room key that he'd discovered earlier, after waking up as a stranger in his own skin with Polar Bear wailing in his ears. That hotel room was the last place he'd seen Noel, which made it pretty much the only place he wanted to be.

***

"It's a good thing you're so fat," Naboo said placidly to Howard, who was stretched out on the sofa so that the shaman could better look him over. "This ended up just a flesh wound."

Howard's expression noticeably deflated, his eyes glazing over with hurt. "What do you mean, fat? I'm a sturdy, powerful man with an unstoppable physique." 

"That's because it's all stopped up with fat. Now hold still, I need to chant." Naboo scribbled a few arcane symbols in the air and then bowed his head over Howard, muttering nonsense under his breath. Howard tipped his head back against the sofa cushions, his throat white and relaxed as he waited for the shaman's magic to cure all that ailed him. 

Of course, Howard had been decidedly less calm a few minutes ago, when Naboo had arrived at the door and called Noel by his real name.

"Did you just call him 'Noel'?" he had asked, hunched over like a down-hill skier to protect his wound. "What'd you just call him 'Noel' for? That's Vince, Naboo! Can't you see that?" 

Naboo had shrugged at this, and then procured an over-sized mug from his robes. "The tea leaves say his name's Noel, and the leaves never lie," Naboo said, then held the mug out for all to see. _Howard and Noel are in danger_. "They read 'Howard and Vince' before, like always, but by the time I made my third cuppa, they'd changed."

"Oh no," Howard had said, looking from Naboo to Noel warily, as if they were about to throw a net over him and do unspeakable things to his clubbed-dumb body. "No no no, no sir."

"But I already told you I wasn't Vince!" said Noel, almost hurt by Howard's reaction. "I said I was Noel and you said that it didn't matter, remember?" 

"Yeah, well... you were hugging me and, and I thought you were playing a game!" 

"Game? What kind of game would that be?" 

In answer, Howard had gone as red as lobster thermador, his eyes flicking to Noel's chest, still bare, and then away again. 

"What? You don't mean _love_ games?" Noel said, gaping, while Naboo simply shook his head and made a small tut of disgust.

"You were the one who got naked!" Howard burst out, gone all bristly with embarrassment.

Noel had looked away. Partly because seeing Howard suffer embarrassment in person was a really unbearable thing to witness, and partly because he'd had no idea, no indication, that Howard had interpreted their private moment in such a fashion. A _love game_? Abruptly, he looked back at Howard, gnawing on his bottom lip and trying to read what exactly was behind the other man's heated blush. 

Howard chose to save face at that moment by suffering another wave of pain from his injury, and Noel had no choice but to help Naboo move him over to the sofa, both he and the shaman mindful of the larger man's dramatic and flailing limbs. 

Now, with the shaman chanting his hoo-doo language over Howard's injury, Noel could only watch, partly in wonder over the admittedly cheap-looking performance (Naboo actually chanted _hocus pocus schmocus_ at one point), and partly in wonder at the performer himself. He couldn't stop staring at the other man's profile, shadowed by the crest of his black turban. 

"Hey," Howard said, having opened one eye and caught Noel staring. "What're you looking at Naboo like that for?"

Noel jerked his gaze away. "I'm not looking."

"He thinks I'm his brother," Naboo offered between chants. 

"I don't!" Noel protested. He didn't, not really. 

Howard sized them up at the same time. "What brother, Colto the horse?" 

"No, some ordinary bloke named Mike." 

"Mike?" Howard tried to sit up.

"Careful now," Naboo warned, pushing him back down. "You've got to give the spell time to settle." 

"But I met a Mike," Howard said, disobeying Naboo's instructions just enough to catch Noel's eye. "At the hotel in London. He looked just like you, Naboo." 

Naboo frowned. "No one looks like me."

"Okay, fair point. His hair wasn't quite so Little Dutch Boy."

"You saw Mike?" Noel asked, while Naboo turned away and muttered something unflattering about the Dutch under his breath. 

"I saw _a_ Mike. What, are you saying it was your brother?" 

"Sounds like it was him," Noel said, unable to stop excitement from creeping into his voice. "Did you talk to him? Did Vince?" 

"He shouted at us for a bit about -- " Howard began. 

"Wait, you have to stop this," Naboo put in, slapping a hand over Howard's mouth and fixing Noel with a pretty fierce expression -- for Naboo, anyway. "You're only going to make the tri-dimensional fissure worse."

"The...tri-what?" 

"Tri-dimensional fissure. It's what happens when the same entities from different dimensions meet up and create a third, chaotic dimension as a result of their meeting." 

From beneath Naboo's hand, Howard nodded fiercely, as if he had possessed this little nugget of information all along. 

Noel's studied the two men, who just so happened to very much resemble the two men he trusted most in the world. He wanted to believe. He wanted to roll his eyes. 

"Okay, a tri-dimensional fissure sounds...well, as probable as anything else, I guess. But someone else told me that what's happening out in the zooniverse is down to me and this, um, script I wrote." He swallowed, his throat bound up with a confession that felt like so much dry cotton. "This script I wrote that was sort of all about Vince and his life and times..." he trailed off lamely, feeling the weight of perplexed eyes on him. 

"Nah, that's rubbish," Naboo said, his smile dim and pleasant.

"I'll say it's rubbish!" Howard said. "I can tell you all about Vince's life and times in three words: hair, fashion, and crap music."

"That's four words," Naboo pointed out.

"Three nouns, then, with an adjective for emphasis and good measure," Howard amended, then resumed glaring at Noel.

"Look, I ain't saying it was the best idea I ever had!" Noel said, raising up his hands. "And I wasn't even going to show the stupid script to anyone."

"Really?" Naboo asked mildly. "You don't seem like the sort of person who would put time and effort into something, then hide it away where no one can see it."

Noel lowered his head slightly, as if to batter away the words with his skull. "So you're saying it _is_ my script that's to blame, then?" 

Naboo shrugged. "Dunno. Don't matter much, either way. We'll have to find the source of the tri-dimensional fissure to put things right." 

Howard lifted a finger in Noel's direction. "Wouldn't _that_ be the source?"

"No," Naboo said, then waved toward the windows. "It's out there somewhere." 

"You mean the moon world," Noel said, and Naboo nodded in confirmation. 

"What? What's this about the moon world?" Howard asked, pinked and frustrated at being out of the loop. 

"It's all we heard about when me and Julian got here ," Noel explained. "Everything was going all mental in the moon world. Bats gone homicidal and such."

"Ah," Howard said, enlightened. "I'll be sure to steer clear of it, then. There's a loris living there who always tried to shimmy up my trouser leg and gnaw on my kneecap." 

"That's what happens with fat knees," Naboo said under his breath, then, at a normal volume: "Steering clear won't solve anything. We've got to get in there and see how much damage has been done." 

"Good plan, little man," Howard said, giving the shaman a thumbs-up. "You get a wriggle on out to the moon world, then report straight back to us." 

Naboo's face soured. "You're coming with me, the both of you. And don't try to limp out of it, Howard. I just used my best and most powerful spell on you."

"What?" Howard's eyes widened -- as much as they could anyway, and he flicked them toward Noel to see if he'd find any support there. Noel only gave a slight shake of his head, and Howard let out a massive sigh. "Well, did you check the expiration on that spell? I can still feel a bit of an ache, right here," he insisted, patting the area above his hip.

"Your wound was over there," Naboo said, pointing to Howard's other hip. 

Hastily, Howard re-arranged his hand. "That's what I meant -- right here." 

"Come on, Howard," Noel said, appealing to him in the same voice that Vince would have used. "It'll be a right adventure, won't it? And I bet you ain't been to the old moon world in ages."

"And _you_ haven't been there at all," Howard threw back, not a bit fooled. "And yet you're acting like it's time for Christmas crackers."

Noel lifted his shoulders in a half-hearted, helpless shrug. "If Naboo says we've got to go there to sort things out and put them right again..."

"Right for who?" Howard asked, the question filling the hut with a silence that hung there for several long seconds.

"For me, that's who," Naboo said. "I've got to get Bollo back like he was, and my blue turban's up and vanished. So has the carpet."

"I think we should stay here," Howard insisted. "I've got a bad feeling about that moon world place. If it's made the bats homicidal then we ought to give it a wide berth."

"Bad feeling?" Naboo echoed, his expression wary. "You channeling Bollo now?" 

"I don't have to be a gorilla to have a bad feeling," Howard said, then looked to Noel for help yet again. "Look, you seem less flighty than Vince, less prone to eating cheese off the trap -- don't you think we ought to stay put? Wait things out?"

Noel shook his head weakly. "I'm tired of waiting. I want to move forward. Sorry."

"But what about me?"

"We can just leave you here, then," Naboo said, smiling. "All alone."

"No," Noel said, Jenny's escape returning to his thoughts. "We can't leave him, the creature that stuck him in the side is still loose." 

"What creature?" Naboo asked.

"The Bowie bandit," Howard said. 

"Bowie stabbed you up?" Naboo asked, his face showing interest at the possibility. "Oh no, were you trying to play the sax solo from 'Young Americans' again?" 

"A bandit with a bowie _knife_ , not David Bowie." 

_It wasn't a knife_ , Noel thought, but said nothing aloud. It had occurred to him, in an extremely unsettling way, that he was the only person that Jenny showed herself to and spoke to. Julian had seen the chameleons in the chameleon lounge, but had he seen _the_ chameleon? 

"Howard," he said, trying to forget Jenny as he stretched a hand out to the other man. "Come with us. We might need you."

Howard's cheeks warmed in surprise and his protests died a quick death in his throat. "I should say you might need me. Someone has to be counted on to be the voice of reason." 

"If you're that voice then we're doomed," Naboo said, giving Howard a long, silent once-over. "Oh well," he finally concluded, more chipper. "We might be doomed anyway."

Noel found his boots and pulled them on, trying not to think about doom. Thoughts of it filled his head anyway, appearing like big cartoon explosions drawn in electric red and yellow. His foot sunk into his boot slowly, so slowly, like he was doing it in a dream. He stood up and ran a hand through his ratty hair and was pretty sure he felt every single strand, each one a helpless citizen of his head.

"Let's go," he said, and his voice sounded the same as always, which surprised him.

Outside, there was still no moon. The sky was a purple, clobbered-up colour and punctured with stars. The sky was just a bruise that had been hiding away the real thing -- fantastically star-shaped and star-bright -- all along.

***

to be concluded


	8. part eight

  
**A Journey Through Time and Space**

***

part eight   


Julian saw the church in the same moment that he remembered that he was meant to be looking for it.

The mini-cab had been idling at an intersection, the windshield wipers swishing away the beginnings of a light rain. _Swiff-swiff_. It was a sound that made Julian think of leaving his grandparents' house after Sunday roast, of being bundled into the back seat while half-asleep, the rumble of the engine coaxing him further into dreamy oblivion. And then the light changed and the cab turned right, onto a quiet, unfamiliar street that was lined with tall trees -- so tall that he didn't see the spires of the church until it was almost too late. 

Julian only knew that it was _the_ church because the bell tower had sounded off one o'clock at the very moment that the cab turned right at the intersection.

Odd, how time seemed to slow down as soon as the church came into sight. The cab whizzed by it in a matter of seconds -- in the dark, no less -- but it seemed as if every detail of the structure became etched into his memory in that short passing of time. Or maybe that was impossible; maybe his mind simply saved him by inventing all the details in one great, cognitive burst, all too aware that everything was fleeting. 

It was just a church. The double spires stood like a pair of cautious dancers, side by side but too shy to get any closer. Windows were placed in stately groups of three, thin and tapered like elegant fingers, and a marble saint stood guard in the alcove over the front doors. It was impossible to tell the building's age, it might be gothic or just gothic revival. But it was old enough, certainly, perhaps old enough to have even seen London's great fire. 

Even as he committed the church to heart, Julian thrummed his fingers against his kneecap, nervous and restless. It felt like everything was coming down to time and timing. 

"Was that the church with the bells we heard before?" Vince asked.

Julian nodded. "Yeah." He hadn't realised that Vince was looking for the church, too. 

"Is that where we're going? Are we going to pray?" Vince's voice was breathy, resisting a laugh. 

"No, you maniac. We're going to the hotel." 

"What hotel?"

"The one you woke up in this morning, if you care to remember that far back." 

"Ooooh but it hurts when I do that," Vince said, intentionally ridiculous. 

That made Julian laugh. "Mind you take care of that one remaining brain cell," he cautioned. 

"No, but really, what are we going there for? To get all that luggage and whatnot that you left behind?"

"No, I'm not worried about that." Julian glanced at the driver, who appeared to be ignoring them, then moved closer to Vince. The street lights were hitting the rain-streaked windows just so, sending dappled patterns over both of them. "That was the last place I saw Noel. Our room at the hotel is the last thing I remember before coming to at that jazz gig." 

Julian expected some kind of retort, but Vince fell curiously silent for several minutes, turning his head to hide his expression. When he spoke again, it was to ask an impossible question. 

"Why do you reckon that me and Howard got all mixed up with you and Noel? Why'd we swap skins, only to half-swap back?" 

Julian stared out the window, watching the rain snake down the glass. "I don't know. I haven't got even the slightest idea. I wish I did." 

"What happened to you before you woke up back in your own body again?"

"Nothing," Julian said, shrugging. "Noel and I drank some gin and fell asleep." 

That was a half-truth. And not even the most important half, not even the truer half. 

"Sleeping!" Vince sounded appalled. "You're a pair of famous blokes and that's how you spend the evening, having a little sleepy? At least me an' Howard painted ourselves up and hit the town."

"What else would we have done? We were in a zoo. There was no 'town' to hit."

"Hit the zoo, then! Hit the zoo like a typhoon. You and Noel could have nicked Naboo's magic carpet, or prank called Dixon Bainbridge. You could have slapped around Tony the Prawn. You could have done some fox-bumming. You could have..."

"Okay, right, I get the idea," Julian said, showing Vince the palm of his hand. "But we weren't about to go looking for trouble. We were lying low. It's called _being sensible_." 

Vince let out a thick snort. "Sensible sounds awful. How do you even know you're alive?" 

"There are certain indicators, see. One's called a pulse. The other is breathing. Oh, and then there's another called brain activity." 

The dim interior of the mini-cab seemed to render Vince's smile particularly wicked. "No wonder your eyes are so small. All that brain activity is squeezing your face shut like a clam." 

"And look at your eyes," Julian said, flicking a piece of hair out of Vince's face. "Bulging out like a pair of sea anemones." 

Vince's smile widened. "That's right. Coming after you, they are." 

And they did, locking on Julian's and holding him there, in a swell of watery, uncertain blue. 

Julian felt words -- very insensible words -- threaten to rise out of him. But Vince's own words came out first. 

"I remember being dead, that's what I remember." 

"What?" 

"That's the last thing I remember of me and Howard. Being dead." 

Julian stared at Vince; his face was white and serious. "What do you mean? How can you remember something like that?" 

Vince crossed his arms over his chest, hugging himself. "It was just me and him, you know? And we were flying or floating about in some dark place. But not a bad sort of dark. More like when you take a nap on a sunny day and the insides of your eyelids are a cloudy sky-blue colour, but you just can't open your eyes to see if that's really what colour the sky is." 

Julian just gave a slow shake of his head, eliciting a sigh from Vince. 

"Remember what it was like before you were born? It was like that. Except I wasn't waiting alone, so it wasn't so bad." Vince made a sudden move, his hand grabbing hold of Julian's and pulling it toward him.

"What are you doing?" Julian stared at his hand, all closed up inside Vince's grasp. 

"That's what he did. I had my hands out and he grabbed hold of them, kept them close like this."

"He grabbed _your_ hand?" 

Vince nodded. 

Gently, Julian pulled his hand from Vince's hold. "You weren't really dead, Vince. That was just part of our live act."

"Wot?" 

"Our live show. We performed it for the last time just last night. Everyone is murdered by the Hitcher -- you, Howard, Bollo, Naboo, everyone -- and at the end, when they're resurrected, Vince and Howard fly through the air. Only it's not really Vince and Howard, it's me and Noel pretending to be them -- be you, I mean. Anyway, we're attached to pulleys and cables and we swing around in mid-air, holding hands like a pair of giddy schoolgirls. And then everyone sings and it's all over." 

Vince started to shake his head. At the same time, the mini-cab came to a halt in front of the hotel.

"Thank you, sir," Julian said, handing the driver a tenner, then pushing the car door open. 

"That's not what happens!" Vince said, grabbing the back of his jacket and trying to pull him back in. 

"Hey! Let go. What are you talking about? We've got to go!" 

Vince stuck his legs halfway out of the mini-cab, his feet not quite touching the pavement. "It doesn't happen like that!" he insisted, his face hectic and flushed. "There's no resurrection, no singing. It's not a bad place we're in, but we can't open our eyes." 

"Look, Vince, this is all a lot of nonsense to me..."

Vince stood up, far more elegantly than his shaky limbs should have allowed, and stepped away from the car. Then he turned to Julian and continued speaking.

"Or maybe our eyes _are_ open, and there's just nothing to see." He smiled hollowly, rain making his cheeks wet. 

"Vince..."

"I don't feel like myself anymore," Vince said, then he extended a hand, studying it. "I'm still all here, aren't I?" 

"Yes, you are. We both are." Julian twitched in hesitation, then took hold of Vince's hand, leading them both towards the hotel's front doors.

***

Every few minutes or so, Noel would become aware of the fact that he was rubbing at his own arms, smoothing away gooseflesh even though he wasn't at all cold. There was no breeze to chill him, anyway -- the air was as still as if they were indoors, and for the first time since waking up that morning, the zooniverse felt more like a set than a real place. They were wandering through the wooded area better known as the jungle room, but the trees now had a plasticine sheen to them, and the ground beneath his feet didn't rise and fall the way the real earth did. It was flat, the underbrush too artful and perfect.

"You sure you know the way?" he called out to Naboo, who was in the lead. The shaman had been talking about tri-dimensional fissures for the past few minutes, and while what he had to say on the matter was quite interesting (they were a problem, tri-dimensional fissures, especially when whole species disappeared into them, like the dinosaurs did), Noel wasn't really listening properly. 

"No," Naboo admitted. "But it's got to be around here somewhere." 

"Howard?"

The other man was walking steadily at Noel's side, and he shook his head at Noel's prompt. "Sorry, I don't remember."

"It's alright, Howard," Noel reassured, then spoke in Naboo's direction again. "I saw Rudi earlier...er, maybe you know him, I dunno. Anyway, he told me we'd have to follow the rays of light from the moon in order to find the moon world." 

Naboo slowed down and looked over his shoulder, frowning. "He said that?" 

"Yeah." 

"Idiot. Anyone can see that there's no moon tonight." Naboo came to a full stop, his face pinched in concentration as he began rummaging through the large pockets of his robe. 

"That's right," Howard piped up. "There's an eclipse tonight, isn't there?" 

"There is?" Noel said, surprised. 

"That's what I heard."

Naboo was unimpressed. "That's nothing compared to the solar flares. It's no wonder this is happening. The celestial weather is ripe for all sorts of muck-ups." He removed something bright from his pocket and held it out like a torch. "This should help, though." 

"What is that?" Noel asked, squinting. The bright thing was very bright. 

"Lunar rock," Naboo said proudly. "Er, don't tell Neil Armstrong you saw me with it, he thinks he lost it down a toilet in Bangkok."

Noel nodded faintly, and as the shaman set out again, the light from the lunar rock moved this way and that, threading a path through the trees. As they walked, Noel held back just a bit. Howard did the same, matching Noel's pace and sticking close to his side. 

"So," Noel said. 

"What?" said Howard, his tone gruff. 

"You thought we were playing a love game earlier?" Try as he might, Noel couldn't keep the smile out of his voice.

A stick crunched loudly, Howard's foot coming down on it too hard. "Dunno what you mean," he hissed under his breath. "And must we really march to our doom this way? I'm telling you that I can feel it in my bones -- the moon world's gone wrong!" 

"Don't try to sneakily change the subject." 

"I'm not!" 

"Alright, alright," Noel said, keeping his voice low. "I know that you and Vince are just mates. I'm just taking the piss, yeah?"

"Of course we're just mates," Howard said. "I mean... wait, is that what he told you?" 

" _He_?" Noel glanced sideways. "Uh, Howard? Vince and I don't really talk. Not like in the way that you're picturing, anyway."

"Well, of course. But still, you'd _know_ if he had... had any sort of, say, unseemly attractions towards me, his best mate."

Noel felt a rock give way under his boot, more foam-rubber than stone now. "Maybe I would know, but who cares? It wouldn't change how you felt. And besides, when two people are really close, I mean _really_ close, things of that nature are bound to become obvious, aren't they?"

"It's obvious!?" Howard said, his voice jumping into a higher register as he came to a dead stop.

Noel stopped too, his mouth falling open. "Wha...? You mean...you? You're 'obvious' for Vince?" 

"Shhhh!" Howard swatted at him desperately. 

"Why've you two stopped?" Naboo called from several yards away, giving them a dirty look. "We're nearly there!" 

"Sorry, Naboo!" Howard shouted brightly, then he gave Noel a fierce look and ran up ahead, leaving Noel alone and shaken. 

"It's _not_ obvious," he muttered, then said it louder: "If that's your idea of obvious...well, it's not!" 

"Giddy up already!" Naboo shouted, and Noel began to walk again, albeit grudgingly. 

Howard purposefully distanced himself from Noel now, and Noel appraised that distance quietly, finding that it resonated in all sorts of ways. Mostly, it reminded him of all the times he tried in vain to chase Julian's eyes down during the course of a private conversation, only to have them skip away and peer into the corners instead. 

His private thoughts ended when they came upon a large clearing. A domed building sat there like a large igloo, its surface glowing with a pearly light, and the land surrounding it was as rocky and strange as the surface of the moon itself. Shallow craters made for shimmering, lifeless ponds. The air was dry and sharp. 

"Whoa," Noel breathed. A large sign was posted above the front doors of the building, but the words WELCOME TO THE MOON WORLD had been scribbled out with spray paint. 

"That's vandalism," Howard stammered, his posture hunched and anxious. 

Naboo pocketed his lunar rock and faced both of them. "Alright, we're here. Who's going in first?" 

No one spoke for a moment, then Noel finally gave in. "I will," he said, heading for the doors. 

A hand grasped his wrist, pulling him back. "Wait...wait a minute," Howard said. "Don't go in there." 

"Let go, Howard. It'll be alright." 

But Howard pulled at him again, a note of pleading in his voice. "Send the shaman in instead. Be _sensible_!" 

Noel tried to shake Howard's hand away. "But I'm trying to be responsible, yeah? It's all down to me to do the right thing." 

Howard let go and backed off, his face stung, his eyes blinking. "Oh, yes, I see. It's all down to you."

"Come with me," Noel offered, holding his hand out. 

Howard said nothing and took a few more steps backward. Behind him, one of the ponds rippled. 

"Howard, be careful," Noel said, watching the ring of ripples move across the silvery water. "There's a pond -- " 

Like a scene from _Jaws_ \-- sans the ominous music, which somehow made it all the more terrible -- a creature erupted from the pond, a howl tearing from its throat.

_"Do you love meeeee_?"

"Fucking hell," Naboo said, ducking. Noel did the same, instinctively covering his head.

Old Gregg threw his dripping, scaly arms around Howard's middle and began to drag him into the water. Noel saw them thrash and struggle, but was too shocked to move for a moment. But then Old Gregg lifted his weedy head and gave him an obscene, knowing wink. 

"No!" Noel burst out, lunging for Howard. 

"Help me!" Howard yelled, trying to elbow the merman loose. But despite his smaller stature, Old Gregg must have been tremendously strong. He simply picked Howard up like a large toy and jumped into the pond with a giant splash. Noel didn't even stop to think, he just threw his arms over his head and dove into the water after them.

And landed hard, right on his face.

He groaned and lifted his head, which was throbbing all over. Then he rolled over onto his back, surprised to find that he was perfectly dry. Feeling beneath him, he discovered that surface of the pond had turned to ice. No, not ice, it wasn't cold enough. He sat up with a groan and ran his fingers over the water, willing his vision to clear. "What happened? Where did they go?" He squinted and looked down at the water, then jerked back when he saw Old Gregg's face staring back at him. "What the fuck?!" 

"Get up!" Naboo demanded, yanking at his arm. 

"Where...? What...?" Noel stammered, completely disoriented. "What happened to the pond?" 

"It's gone," Naboo said, then demonstrated by tapping his foot on the edge of the water. "It's turned into glass. A mirror." 

"Wot?" Noel looked more closely and saw that Naboo was right. It wasn't Old Gregg's face he had seen; it was his own. "Do something!" he said. "Change it back!" 

Naboo widened his eyes and shrugged. "I didn't do it!" 

"Fix it!" 

"I can't!"

"Gahhh, you're useless!" Noel raged, then he kicked at the ground, yowling when his foot connected with a rock. Both frenzied and inspired, he picked up the rock and aimed it at the mirror-pond.

"Don't!" Naboo tried to knock the rock out of Noel's hand. "Howard's in there! Breaking the mirror could be bad. You might hurt him." 

Noel froze, the rock dropping from his fingers. 

"I'm sorry," Naboo said, and it sounded like he meant it. "But we have to keep going. That's the only way we can end any of this." 

"I'm not leaving Howard," Noel said, glaring.

"Things are getting worse," said Naboo, almost pleading now. "We've got to hurry!"

Noel breathed in, then gave a weak nod. He knew Naboo was right. 

"We have to get inside the moon world." 

"I know!" Noel snapped. "Give me... god, is a fucking minute too much to ask for?" 

Naboo took a step back, but his face remained composed. He was done pleading. 

"Fine." Noel swallowed hard and turned towards the moon world. "Let's go."

***

Because he was absorbed in folding Noel's clothes, Julian didn't immediately notice how quiet Vince had gone.

So many clothes, all of them scattered around the hotel room in careless disarray. "Did you do this?" Julian had asked. "Or did we leave the room this way?" Vince had only shrugged and said perhaps it was a bit of both. Then he lay down on the bed, exhaustion evident in the circles beneath his dull eyes. Julian let him rest while he set about tidying up the room. He wasn't sure what good tidying would do, but he had to start somewhere. 

He folded each garment with precision, some of the tee-shirts so small that they ended up roughly the size of cigarette packets. Each folded shirt had its own story: this was the one Noel had worn to the last IAMX gig; that one was from the Oxford signing that had a cigarette burn on the sleeve; and this was the stripey jumper that Julian had accidentally borrowed, mistaking it for his own similarly-coloured stripey jumper. How embarrassing that had been, showing up to rehearsal wearing something of Noel's. Neither he nor Noel had even noticed until Paul asked Julian why his sleeves were so short, and was that the new Yorkshire fashion statement?

Julian must have exhausted all of his internal jokes about Noel's teen-angst wardrobe, though, because none of them seemed funny now. The pint-sized shirts and wee jeans only made him smile, in that way that sad people do.

"And he tells me I wear too much black," he murmured, shaking out yet another pair of black trousers. Then, in a louder voice, he asked Vince if he had seen Noel's pac-man belt. "He'll murder me if it's gone missing," he added, snorting lightly. "As if the girl who made it won't send him another before he even has a chance to ask."

Vince didn't reply, and Julian craned his neck to get a better look at him. 

"Did you hear me?" 

Vince was staring at the ceiling, his body so unnaturally still that Julian's heart lurched like a gear shift. He came to his feet fast, bright clothes sliding from his lap, and shook Vince by the shoulders. 

"Vince! Wake up!" 

But he wasn't sleeping. His eyes were open wide and glassy as a doll's, and like a doll's, they looked up at nothing. 

"Vince?" Julian licked his lips, his voice dropping to a whisper. "....Noel?" 

There was no response, but the thin chest rose and fell slowly, someone still breathing inside it. Even so, Julian pressed his head to the other man's sternum, listening for the far-away drumming of his heartbeat. It was still there: muted but steady. 

Several minutes passed in which Julian did everything he could think of. He slapped Vince hard across the face, cursing at him. He retrieved a glass of water from the ensuite and tried tipping it between his lips, finally dumping the whole thing over his head when the water kept gurgling back out. Then, with the water glass still in hand, he kissed Vince's -- or Noel's -- wet mouth and found it firm and unyielding. Eventually, he just pulled the other man into his lap and said one or two pleading words. But only one or two because he wasn't an idiot, he knew that his friend was somewhere he couldn't reach. 

Which left Julian alone, with no one but himself.

***

The dark of the moon world was close and almost perfect. The domed room seemed mostly empty, but for some tall shapes at the far end. Without any clear idea of what they were, Noel walked towards them, watching the long-toothed shadows creep closer, his hands held out just in case he slammed into them. The only noise he heard was the click of his boot-heels and the _swiff-swiff_ sound of Naboo's trainers. He inched forward until something brushed against his shoulder, light as a drifting insect, but surprising enough to make him gasp aloud.

"What is it?" Naboo asked, stopping behind him. In the dark, it was suddenly easy to forget that he was Naboo. Naboo, the great and powerful shaman. 

"There's something here," Noel said, his voice thick. "A cord. For a light, I think."

And something else was here, too. Something, something... what was it? Noel's eyes strained against the dark, trying to make some sense of the tall shapes that were still several yards away, but they remained stubbornly vague: just tall, just shapes. The only thing in the room that was even remotely visible to him was the man at his side.

"Aren't you going to pull it?" Naboo asked, sounding bored.

Noel swallowed. "Why don't you?" he said, and it felt as if his heart was suddenly pumping gallons and gallons of blood through his veins all at once, making his ears swell with the sound of all that hectic beating. Something was here; something was wrong.

Naboo allowed a few ticks of silence to go by, then said, knowingly, "But you're the one who's taller."

With a large intake of breath, Noel managed to coax his joints from their locked position and spin around to face the other man. Noel couldn't see him clearly in the dark, but he saw enough: he wasn't the taller of them at all. The other man was exactly his own height.

"Jenny," he said. Jenny. Fuck, had he ever been more scared of someone in his life? He thought not.

_Some things are best seen in the dark,_ she said, in that voice that sounded like nightmares. 

"I didn't know that your abilities included changing into people," Noel said, more coolly than he felt. "Regular karma chameleon, you."

_Uh-huh, I come and go. I only wondered when you would figure it out._

Noel bit down hard on his back teeth, frigid dread rattling him through and through. "How many people have you been running around as?" he asked, his voice hard. "Every one who's been trying to get me over here to the moon world, I reckon."

Jenny snickered softly, not above gloating. _Actually, if you think back you'll find that when I was Fossil I purposely warned you to not set foot in the moon world. I thought you would ignore him and do as you pleased._

"But we didn't," Noel said. "You thought wrong." It was only a small triumph, especially considering he'd ended up here now, at the end of things. And without Julian by his side.

_Yeah, it's been surprisingly difficult to get you to do as you please._

Noel shook his head, all his thoughts on the verge of jamming up and mounting into full-on panic. "I still don't get it. You've brought me here, and for what? Just to get a small part in a show that won't even happen?"

_Oh,_ Jenny said, her new human mouth making a frown that Noel could just barely make out. Or maybe he just imagined it based on the genuine note of pity he heard in the creature's voice. _You really haven't put it all together yet, have you?_

"No," Noel said, too weary to play games. "No, I haven't. I'm in the fucking dark," he said, then raised his arms and gestured around the room. "Obviously."

_Then turn on the light_.

Noel reached up for the light cord, then hesitated. This thing -- chameleon? Creature? -- had been leading him to this spot since the very beginning, goading him all along the way. There was no way he was going to do what it said now. 

"Forget it," he said, dropping his hand. 

Jenny was quiet for a long moment, then took a step forward. _I'll do it for you, then,_ she said, and with a rustle and a click, light poured into the room, so bright that it seared. Noel squinted and backed away, looking up through stinging vision. Some kind of gold disco ball was twirling at the top of the high, domed ceiling, and it threw off sparkles that were so intense they were like individual stars. It was a dazzling sight, and only when the spots dancing behind his eyes cleared did Noel wonder what the fuck was going on. Then he pulled his gaze away from the spinning orb and was face to face with Jenny's...face. She was stood directly in front of him, her features shifting and running together like modeling clay left too long in the sun. Her eyes went from brown to green to feral red, then finally settled on a clear, brilliant blue. Then the rest of the face emerged: the obscenely clear skin; the childishly red mouth; the nose that was strangely squashed if you looked at it too hard.

"You," Noel said, his voice thin and barely there, leeched away by fear. "Fuck you all."

***

He kept counting the fingers to make sure they were all there. One, two...yes, all five of them. He squeezed again to be sure.

"You scare me," he said, but no light flickered in those blue eyes. 

"Not now," he added. "Though obviously I'm scared out of my mind at the moment. Mostly, I'm scared that, somewhere, you might be feeling as scared as I am right now." 

And then he managed a laugh, but it died quick. 

"The first time you came up to me, you said 'I like your style, mate. It's quite disturbing, isn't it? That stuff about wearing people's skin and whatever,' and I thought 'who the fuck is this idiot?'" 

He paused. "And you shook my hand without asking and your smile was so huge, practically the size of your whole massive head, that I had no choice but to look at you. You had the most memorable face I'd ever seen. You still do." He studied the face again, just to be sure. 

"And you said...I'll never forget this...you said, 'I'd quite like to run amok in someone else's skin for a bit,' and I looked at you like you were wrong in the head, I'm sure, and I asked you what you meant and you said 'It's just a kind of tragedy, isn't it, that we'll never be anyone but ourselves?'"

He made a slight movement and the other man's head lolled into his shoulder, as if getting closer for a snuggle. He looked down, almost hopeful, but the body was still vacant. 

"You don't know how many times I've wondered what you meant by that. I've never wanted to be anyone _but_ myself, see? Maybe stronger, more intelligent versions of myself, or slightly...thinner ones. But floundering about in the paddling pool of another psyche? Another person's set of fears and dreams? No, thank you. For me, acting is as far as that wish goes. 

"But it goes further for you, doesn't it? As far as crawling into another person's skin, so you can see them with better, clearer eyes."

With that, he traced each of the eyebrows, each spidery hair grazing his thumb. "And for some reason you're convinced that I'm the one you have the hardest time seeing, despite the fact I'm right in front of your face." He stroked the brow again, as if imparting his words directly into the brain below it. "What you don't seem to get, though, is that being private is not the same thing as being complicated. When it comes down to it, I'm really a simple man..." 

_Isolation...ISOlation...ISOlaaation_

What an inopportune time for that song to eek its way into his head. He thought he'd known loneliness when he'd written it. He hadn't.

He leaned over and breathed into the ear. "It's simple, Noel. I need you to come back to me. Do you see?" 

Beneath his hand, he thought he felt the eyelashes flutter.

***

"Fuck all of us? Yeah, sorry...it's just me." The creature formerly known as Jenny stepped forward, its face an exact mirror of Noel's own. "Or you, rather."

Noel stared at the face, at _his_ face, trying to suss out if it was kidding, but the face only smiled at him, pityingly, and maybe with just a touch superiority. 

"Ha." Noel let out a weak laugh. "You're not me. Why would I set out against myself in this crazy caper?" 

"Who else would?" The other shrugged a single, graceful shoulder. "Not someone looking for a bit part -- just you. The star."

"Shut your mouth," Noel said to Himself. "I told you it's not like that."

Himself sneered ever so slightly at this, as if more than a little disgusted by such a weak protest. "I couldn't be here if you didn't want it." Himself took a step closer, and Noel stood his ground despite the urge to flee. "Everything that's happened today and tonight happened because you wanted it that way."

Noel shook his head, but with less conviction than he would have liked. "That's madness. I didn't want Howard dragged off by a psychotic gill-man!"

"Why not? You'd already stabbed him in the back."

The ground went wavy under Noel's feet. "What, with your tail, you mean? _Our_ tail? Mine?" 

Himself sighed, then reached out to steady him. "Look, don't think too hard on the technicalities of who's who," Himself said, smiling with certainty. "Trust me when I say that your coconut's not cut out to handle it."

"I'm me," Noel said, with less conviction than he'd been aiming for.

"And so I am," Himself said, giving Noel's shoulder a light squeeze.

"What about Julian?" Noel said, ignoring this claim and shrugging the hand away. "I didn't want Julian gone."

Himself was unimpressed, fluffing the back of his hair. Noel stared at the primping; is this what he really looked like? He'd seen himself on television, of course -- but this wasn't the same. "But you didn't expect him to stay," Himself pointed out, giving his hair a final tug. "It amounts to the same thing." 

"I fucking did too expect him to stay!"

"No, you didn't," Himself said, and dear god did Noel wish he would stop smiling like that, like a circling shark. "Look, I'm not gonna blame you. You're in the tent, all cosied up with gin and life or death desperation, and he still won't touch you. You make yourself into the last man on his earth, and timbeeeer!" Himself made a motion like a tree falling. "He's down like a lumberjack, sawing away at a stack of logs."

Noel would have reached up and shut his own mouth, if he could, but he didn't want to touch Himself, he didn't want to be that close. So he backed away instead, heels catching on the uneven ground and nearly sending him sprawling. None of this could be true. He didn't _kick Julian out_ with the powers of his imagination -- no one's mental imaging faculties were that strong and self-destructive. He was about to tell Himself this, but Himself leaped closer, jabbing at the centre of Noel's chest so that he had no choice but to back up even further.

"Come on come on come on come on!" Himself chanted. "Forget the bad Ju-Ju, we've got a show to cook up!" He grabbed Noel and whirled him around like a dancing partner. They were at the far end of the domed room now, and the tall shapes were finally visible in the light of the gold disco ball. 

The shapes were set flats, made of light plywood that had been primed white for scenery painting. But just at that moment, they looked to Noel like very tall tombstones. 

Himself rolled his eyes at Noel's stricken face. "None of that gloominess. It's time to unleash the rampaging stallions of creativity -- we're the new horsemen of the newpocolpyse!" 

"Get lost!" Noel tried desperately to break loose from the other's grip. "I'm not unleashing anything." 

"Of course you are," Himself said, finally loosening his hold on Noel and offering him a reassuring pat on the arm. "You're an artist. Such an artist that you actually remade the world in your image. Imagine that! Oh, wait...you already did." Himself chuckled and began to climb up one of the flats, moving much like the chameleon he'd started out as.

"I _didn't_ ," Noel seethed. "This isn't any kind of world I would ever create. It's fucking wrecked!" 

Himself pressed one of his hands into the flat, and colours began to stream from the tips of his fingers, reds and blues and greens streaking outward as if drawn with an invisible paintbrush. "Don't you want to help me?" Himself said, flicking a gob of paint and smiling. "You'll only be helping yourself!" With a wet finger, he began to scrawl big words on the plywood. _VINCE NOIR'S ELECTRO SHOWCASE_.

"No." 

Himself looked annoyed now, verging on angry. "Don't try to tell me that this isn't what you wanted."

Noel straightened up. He wished he were the taller of the two, the stronger of the two. "This place doesn't have what I want." 

And then he lowered his head and charged the flat, one of him roaring like an animal while the other threw back his head and just laughed.

***

He jumped at the slight, fluttering sensation -- enough so that the other man's body almost tipped over. He grabbed the shoulders and quickly righted it, looking hard into the face for some new sign of life.

"Did you blink?" he asked, desperate. "I swear... I thought I felt a blink." 

No answering blink came. 

The dejection he felt surpassed any he had experienced before this. He hid his face in his hands, his eyes desert-dry but aching just the same, and when he'd finally had enough of the dark he put his hands down and took a deep breath. He was going to tell Noel that it was okay. He wasn't going to leave him, not now, and he was on the verge of saying so when he saw something that made him completely forget what he was about to say. 

Noel's eyes were looking past him. It was just a tiny difference, so slight that it was no wonder he hadn't seen it at first. Whereas before the eyes had looked pointedly at nothing, they now looked pointedly at...something. They were cocked ever-so-slightly to the left. After several seconds in which he convinced himself that he wasn't just seeing things, he finally turned his body in an attempt to follow the new line of vision.

Almost immediately, he saw what Noel's eyes saw: a bundle of untidy pages, stacked to one side of the television. 

He stood up slowly, then took the four steps to the low chest of drawers the television was sat on. He touched a finger to the script's title page. It was slightly rumpled now, but still read as he remembered: _Vince Noir's Electro Showcase_. 

He yanked his hand away, the momentum taking him a step backward. "What?" he asked, turning to his silent friend. "Why are you looking at that? What am I supposed to do?" 

In answer, silence prevailed. But in that silence, he thought he heard what Noel said. Maybe he was just imagining it, as Noel might have imagined a thousand different things in Julian's silences, but the answer came anyway. It was very clear in its arrival. It was almost loud.

"Are you sure?" 

More silence. 

He lowered his head, then riffled through the contents of his jacket pockets until he found what he was looking for: that single, battered matchbook. _Find Yourself_.

"Alright," he said, then took a sharp breath. "Alright."

He tore loose a match, then struck it to life.

***

Noel was furious with Himself. Unfortunately, Himself was pretty much furious with Noel, too. When Noel rammed his shoulder into the plywood flat, Himself slid halfway down the length of it, his artist-fingers leaving a mess of rainbow paint. _Vince Noir's Electro Showcase_ was hardly legible, now.

"Look what you've done," Himself whined. 

"You were the one who said I created this. Now I'm uncreating it. Either lend a hand or get out of the way." Noel rammed his shoulder into the flat a second time, and it tipped dangerously backwards. Before it could right itself again, Noel gave it a hard kick. With an enormous _woosh_ , the whole thing promptly fell over, Himself going with it, arse over teakettle.

Coming up from the rubble, Noel's double hooted with more laughter, shaking dust out of his hair. "You're not changing anything. You're just making a giant mess!"

"Good!" Noel retorted. 

"But look," Himself said, pointing with a giggle. "Your mess doesn't matter. It's time for lights, camera, action!"

Noel turned to see what the other Noel was pointing at. It was the gold disco ball. It was spinning faster, glowing brighter, and expanding like a newly-born sun. The jagged beams of light that came from it were hot, and the smell of burning filled the air. 

Fear poured through Noel as smoke appeared, cloaking them in thin tendrils. "What's going on?" he shouted.

Himself clapped his hands together gleefully. "It's time! It's time, it's time!" He came at Noel with a speed that belied physics, then stopped right in front of his nose, his smile wide and warped. "We're gonna bust things up like a blazing meteor, you and me."

Noel trembled a bit at the close-up sight of his own bared teeth. "But I didn't turn the lights on in here," he said, steeling himself. "It was _you_ who did that. Not me!"

Himself laughed, unconvinced. "My finger is your finger, lovey," he said, waving a hand at him.

Noel faltered for a moment, almost convinced, but common sense nagged at him. "That can't be right. You've manipulated me inside and out to get me out here...if we're the same person, why would you even need me?" His eyes narrowed. "You could have thrown me in that pond along with Howard, but you didn't. You needed me to flip the switch..."

"Shut up!" Himself said, and that burst of anger was enough to let Noel know that he was right. 

He knew Himself pretty well, after all. 

"You might be a part of me," Noel said, his voice gathering strength and certainty now. "But there's no fucking way you're all of me." 

Before he could retort or argue, Himself started to cough, and pretty soon, Noel was hacking, too. Smoke was thickening throughout the room, making it harder for them to see each other. Noel's eyes watered, and he turned in a blind circle, his arms held out in front of him. "Is this supposed to happen?" he shouted. 

The answer came in the form of a huge, ground-shaking crash.

***

_And then..._

There's smoke everywhere, rolling like fog off the Thames. It's a miasma with thick fingers and claws, clutching at Julian's throat and making him cough. 

"Vince!" he tries to yell, but it's just a croak. "Noel..."

The bed is a shadowy rectangle, and Noel's empty body is the smaller rectangle reclined upon it. Julian finds an ankle, then pats upward toward the knee. Then he just heave-hoes the other man up in his arms. _Oof_. His back groans in complaint, and he drapes Noel over his shoulder and reminds himself to lift with his legs. Better. 

He knows where the door is, but that knowledge is no good if he can't tell what direction he's facing. He turns around slowly, eyes straining to see. The heat from the fire is gone, but the smoke is darker, obscuring the room like a cloud of ink. 

Where's the door? Where is it? 

He tries to walk, but Noel's limbs get tangled up with his. Something strangles at his neck, pinching and scratching. 

"Fuck off, Noel!" he shouts, suddenly throwing the other man to the ground. 

"You fuck off!" 

They tussle, heavier man pinning the smaller, hip-to-hip until a near-knee to the groin shifts the balance of power.

"We have to get you out!" Julian spits at Noel's face, then punches it. 

"You're not me!" Noel screams, his face hot and vivid red beneath the banshee-wild hair. 

"What?" Julian looks around, panic nudging his rage aside. 

There's no smoke. No fire. Wasn't there just a fire...? 

Rage barrels in again, reminding him that he's _furious_ with Noel. He's...he's...his hands slip around the other man's neck, squeezing. A pulse leaps against his fingers, begging like a madman. 

"Oh god," he says, realising who the real madman is. He let's go. 

Noel stares up at him, eyes shocked open. "Julian...is that you?" 

"I..." Julian gasps. There's no air in here. "I think so." He rolls off Noel and manages to sit up. 

Noel coughs; it's a recovery cough, starting out desperate then trailing off as good air fills his chest. "There was so much smoke," he says. 

Julian turns his head sharply. "You saw the smoke?" 

"Yeah, it was..." Noel sits up, wincing. " _Ow_. Did you hit me?" He reaches up and touches his fast-swelling eye. "Or did I hit myself?" 

"Why would you hit yourself?" Julian asks, puzzled.

Noel's face goes dark at some thought, but he shakes it off with a weak smile. "Dunno. Guess that means it was you that hit me?" 

Julian swallows. "I think so. I'm sorry." 

"Oh, well, I think I might have..." Noel points, looking sheepish. "Gouged up the side of your face." 

Julian reaches up and feels three raw scratches down the side of his jaw. They don't hurt nearly as much as they ought to. He stretches out his arm, his knuckles cracking. The shirt he's wearing has short sleeves. It's the shirt he wore last night. 

Not last night, _tonight_. Noel's wearing the green tee-shirt with the lightning bolts, the same thing he'd been wearing at the after party. The rest of his clothes are strewn about the room, and looking at the mess, Julian realises that his careful folding and packing never happened. None of it had ever happened.

_But it did. I know it happened!_

It's a shared thought between Noel and Julian, both of them struggling with two sets of memories, two realities that are equally unbelievable: one where they became intimate with their own creation, and another where they fought and nearly destroyed it. 

It's Noel who finally breaks the silence. 

"Um, Ju, what the fuck hap -- "

Julian throws a hand up in the space between them, effectively hushing Noel. "Don't. Just...please don't say anything about it. I can't think about it..." He lowers his hand and uses it to hide his face. Something that feels like insanity prickles at the back of his scalp.

"Alright," Noel says, wanting to comfort his friend and not knowing how. They've just been fighting; it may not be the best time to offer a hug, even if he wants desperately to hug him. He feels like he's been separated from Julian for years, and he wants to smell that Julian scent, which is like soap and old ashtrays, and feel the rough scour of whiskers against his forehead. 

He picks up the script to _Vince Noir's Electro Showcase_ ,instead. It's right by his feet, rumpled but still whole. Well, mostly whole. There's a cigarette burn mark right on the title page; Julian must have been smoking when he read it. 

Noel flips through to the end of the script. This time, he knows what he has to do; he's just having one last look. 

 

**NOEL  
(OPENS THE SCRIPT TO ONE OF THE PAGES NEAR THE END AND DISCOVERS THAT THIS IS NOT THE SCRIPT HE WROTE, BUT SOMETHING QUITE DIFFERENT)**

 

Noel stares at the lines, confounded to the bone. Then, after a silent moment, he flips the script shut and studies the cover page. This is his script, isn't it? The title is one long scorch mark.

"What's wrong?" Julian asks.

"Just a minute," Noel murmurs, flipping back to the previous page .

 

**NOEL  
(STUDIES THE COVER PAGE IN CONFUSION)**

**JULIAN  
What's wrong?**

**NOEL  
(TURNS BACK TO THE PAGE NEAR THE END) Just a minute.**

 

Noel closes his eyes and, with great care, places the script on the floor in front of him. A rustle from Julian makes him open his eyes. "Don't look at it," he says, darting out his hand to stop Julian from picking the script up. 

"Why not?"

"Whatever's happened tonight, it ends in a few pages, and then it's just you and me again, like we were before."

"Before?" Julian shakes his head, disbelieving. "Noel, it won't...it can't ever be like before."

Noel's fingers tighten around Julian's hand, intertwining with his own digits. "So you do remember."

"Yeah, all of it."

They couldn't look away from each other if they tried. "Was it real?" Noel asks. "The Zooniverse...and you, and me. And Howard..."

"And Vince," Julian adds.

"But was it?"

Noel can see Julian's swallow get trapped in his throat. "As much as anything else," he says, his laugh stiff and scared, or just scared stiff. 

"Julian," Noel says, and he can't manage any more. Just this once, Julian has to tell him what he needs to hear, and he has to do it without Noel asking him first.

His friend nods at him, slowly. "Yeah, Noel, it always has been real." He reaches up and touches a bruise that's just beginning to form under Noel's eye. "You idiot."

Noel makes a breathy noise, then smiles. A weary smile, born more of relief than joy. "Good," he says. Then "help me" as he comes to his feet, cradling the script against his chest. They go into the ensuite and place it face down in the bathtub, both of their hands pushing it into place as if in an elaborate ritual. Then Noel strikes a match and holds it to all four sides of the script. The paper catches fast, all those words curling into ash and smoke. 

"You put a lot of work into that," Julian observes, though he sounds as if he's hardly sad to see the thing go.

"Mmm," Noel says, feeling better as he watches the script burn. "Not really. Knocked it up in less than a week, if I'm being honest."

"Very devoted to your craft," Julian says. Even as they watch the flames, they know they'll be others. There will always be new scripts, just as there will always be new pathways, new journeys to take or to not take. 

But in a few minutes, _this_ script is nothing but a mound of fluffy ash, and the hot embers that remain are easily doused with a blast from the bathtub taps. "Devoted..." Noel says, a faint, private smile on his face as he steps away from the tub. "Yeah."

Despite the smile, the reminder of having lost nearly everything is still squatting inside him, and it has enough presence to ache through and through, like a throbbing thorn in his side. He wants to run through the streets and chase down everything he's ever been afraid of and laugh in its face. He wants to flush it all away with a good, strong dose of life, lived to the hilt.

"Hey, Ju," he begins, and he wonders if the words he is about to say would have been written on the last page of the script he just burnt. It doesn't matter, though -- he'll just say what he wants to say. That's what should have been there, anyway. 

"I love you. I'm in love with you, really. Not because I expect anything from you, or because I want you to love me back, but just because I do." 

His voice wavers on the last few words -- thinking about being brave feels easier than actually being brave, which, he supposes, is why most people are cowards. 

And the look on Julian's face isn't helping. It's slightly pained, and after the longest few seconds in the world he finally says "Noel, why?"

Noel only smiles in a small, fond way. "Why not?"

Julian stares at him with the look of someone who suspects he's been fed a trick question.

"No, really. Tell me why I shouldn't."

"Come on..." Julian says, exasperated, though perhaps more at himself than Noel. "Lots of reasons," he finally offers.

"Uh-huh," Noel says, grinning. "Let me know when you've hit on one that's a bit more concrete and specific." He reaches up and gives Julian's shoulder a squeeze, friendly and non-threatening. "But for now, I'm going to having me a big, decadent sleep." He walks out of the ensuite; Julian follows. 

"All right," Julian says, his ever-furrowed brow making it clear that he is still perturbed. "See you in the morning? I... yeah, I guess Rich will be coming up to invite us to breakfast." He opens up the door to his adjoining room, and pauses there in the doorway.

"Okay," Noel says, then waits. 

"Noel..."

Noel tries not to look as if he's hopeful, because he very much is. 

"Maybe in a few weeks, after we've had a good and proper rest... maybe we could do some writing?" 

"What, on a third series, you mean?" 

"Yeah." 

Noel pinches the point of his chin, thinking. "You thought all our ideas were crap before."

Julian shrugs. "That was before." 

_Before._ It's a small word that weighs a lot. 

"Okay," Noel says, and Julian smiles in relief, then gives a corny -- and somehow precious -- little wave and disappears into his room. 

Once inside he shuts the door and leans against it, his smile fading away as he staring blankly into the darkness. To be truthful, he doesn't really want to take one more single step into his room, and he remains standing for a long, long time. 

He wonders where Howard and Vince are now. Just two imaginary heartbeats, two ideas spooning in ether? Waiting to open their eyes, or for their eyes to be opened.

If Julian was writing a book about life (and to be honest, Julian is almost always writing a book about life, only its written down in his head instead of down on paper) he would sit down right now to write about how life is a lesson in learning that nothing lasts forever. In mourning the lack of forever. If only he had forever to make up his mind. 

But what will that get him, in the end? A lifetime of delay, of waiting. And then there will be a sudden peal of church bells from nearby, taunting him with that song that sounds like _here here here_. 

Isolation, Part Two.

He jams his hands against his ears and looks upwards at the pebbled ceiling. "Yeah," he sighs. "I got that." 

He doesn't put much thought into what happens next, and it doesn't involve making up his mind because there's nothing to make up. Everything he wants really is here, and the only reason he never believed it before was because it was too easy and too obvious. And yet so hard. What a wanker he is, with his trunk-load of complications and preternatural hesitation. 

So he turns around and pounds on the door the separates them, hard enough to bring Noel running. And Noel's got his shirt off, his hair all askew like he's been sleeping. And he says "Jesus, what's wrong?" and as an answer Julian pushes him into the room and says just this: listen to me, listen to me.

"Yeah, okay, I'm listening," Noel says. He rubs a groggy eye.

"I can think of lots of reasons, okay?"

Noel stares at him, slowly comprehending. "Reasons... oh, reasons that I shouldn't love you?"

"Yeah," Julian says. Then, with a splutter: "But they're all stupid." He curses the splutter; he wanted his words to sound strong and certain. Like they came from the mouth of Charlton Heston.

After a few gob-stopped seconds, Noel takes a step backwards -- not the reaction Julian was expecting -- tilting his head like a dog who's been given an unfamiliar command. "So you're saying...what are you saying?"

"Noel, just... shut up." 

"You're saying shut up," Noel repeats, his voice amused at the edges. 

"No, I'm telling you," Julian says, waiting for Noel to come to him, to touch him, persistent toucher that he is.

"All right," Noel says, not moving from where he stands. He watches Julian with glittering eyes, fully awake now, and cocks his hip slightly, propping his hand against it and tilting his chin upwards. His big step backwards gives Julian the advantage of having a good, long look at him, and for once it isn't muddled up by suppressed attraction -- attraction that, while definitely fueled by Noel's feminine good looks, has more to do with the fact that Julian can't imagine who he would be without him. No matter what shape his life takes later, it will bear Noel's signature all over it, scrawled and messy and on and on. How wonderful. How terrifying.

But he lets too much silence get in between them, prying them apart like a third, unwelcome person, and Noel sighs and drops his hand from his hip. Then he turns around, saying "Sorry, Julian. I really need to sleep," resigned to leave Julian standing there for as long as Julian insists on standing alone.

With his limbs moving ahead of his mind, Julian takes several steps forward and throws his arms around Noel's shoulders, stopping him from going any further. Desperation makes his grip less a back-to-front hug and more a cage, and Julian expects he probably looks like someone trying to help out a choking victim. Noel is still and doesn't struggle, but he doesn't exactly melt against him, either.

Julian relaxes his arms as best he can, his hands crossed over Noel's bare chest, and takes another small step forward, feeling Noel's shoulder-blades pry into him. He bows his head and says into the mess of Noel's hair: "It's not too late. Right?"

Noel twitches at Julian's words -- he can't help it, never could -- they seem to resonate down to the tips of his fingernails. But when he responds he keeps his voice careful. "Late for what?" It's such a struggle to keep his voice careful. 

"For me." Julian follows with a little laugh, unable to stop himself. "I mean...it's not too late for you, you know that." Never mind that he's not even sure what he's talking about anymore. What good are words? They can't make Noel feel what he feels. 

"I was waiting to be ready..."

Noel is silent. 

"But I'm not the sort of person who's ever ready, am I? I always have an excuse, some reason to retreat. And I don't even believe my own excuses anymore."

Silence. 

"Are you listening?" He shakes him slightly. "I'm telling you that I want you." He doesn't mean sex, but his cock stiffens at the words anyway.

"I thought you told me to shut up," Noel finally says, and Julian can hear the smile in his voice. "Take your own advice, why don't you?" The shoulder-blades budge into him further, relenting now, and Noel reaches up and touches one of the hands that Julian has splayed against his chest. Then he tips his head, the back of his skull rocking into the nook of Julian's shoulder, relenting again. He follows that with a half-step backwards, the small of his back meeting Julian's erection. 

Maybe it's strange that they don't kiss at first, but instead give their bodies time to adjust to movements that are deliberately and decidedly erotic. Julian grinds against Noel's backside, breathing hard into the side of his neck, and with Noel's hand still resting over his own, he runs his fingers down the flat plane of Noel's belly. Noel's jeans are so low that he can feel sparse hair above his belt, and cupping a hand to Noel's crotch confirms that he's just as hard as Julian is. 

A flutter of apprehension works its way through Julian's brain. What will become of him and Noel after this? They can't ever be the same again, they can't ever go back. He doesn't know if that's a good or bad thing. 

What he does know is that they wouldn't have been the same again, anyway. 

"Julian," Noel says, low and almost shy, reaching up to touch the back of Julian neck as he returns the pressure that Julian has been applying to his arse. "I want to touch you."

That pretty much settles it. Julian turns Noel around and cups his face with both hands, like a thirsty man about to take a much-needed drink, and leans in to kiss him. Their tongues move around hesitantly at first, but in time desire creates its own just-right rhythm, and the way Noel sucks on Julian's bottom lip makes him groan out loud in greedy wanting. He can feel Noel's tongue everywhere, somehow, and a shudder travels from the base of his cock to the tops of his knees. And then his knees actually give up and buckle, and both he and Noel fall onto the bed together. They rearrange accordingly, and Julian props himself on his elbow long enough to look at Noel as if he's just seeing him for the first time. Then he says: "Here's something you don't know about me." And then he kisses him again.

_I totally knew that_ , Noel thinks.

What he doesn't know is if this will ever happen again. This might be the end, their last and only chance, and by morning, out of sheer desperation for the certainty that functional living requires, they'll convince themselves that they were drunk or dreaming the entire episode. Including this. Especially this.

Right now, it doesn't matter. Julian is with him, touching him like someone who's afraid he'll never get enough, his every breath a little marvel to Noel's ears. And if this does turn out to be a dream then all he can do is hope that wakefulness is a long, long way off.

***

Understand, I'll slip quietly  
away from the noisy crowd  
when I see the pale  
stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.

I'll pursue solitary pathways  
through the pale twilit meadows,  
with only this one dream:  
You come too.

\--Rainer Maria Rilke

***

The End


End file.
